Shadow of the Raven
by Zakuro's ghost
Summary: It was never his intention to hurt the one he loved so badly, so why did it have to come to this? LightxL
1. Darkest Hour

Summary: There was once a man upon a throne of poisonous thorns, but he didn't quite know the potency of the poison until it was too late.

Warnings: Slow moving yaoi, and mature scenes. Also, the Death Eraser has a gigantic role in this, so if that doesn't appeal to you…well please give this a read anyway.

A/N: I apologize for the extremely vague summary, but I don't really know what to tell you guys without giving stuff away. This is my first fanfic, for anything. So I'm really nervous and I'd very much appreciate some feedback in the form of reviews…. Hurtful critics, flames, I'll take them all just please let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I'm not clever enough to own Death Note, unfortunately. Also, the title and the chapter titles are from the album Shadow of the Raven by Nox Arcana.

Darkest Hour

It was done. All in one go.

And now, the task force was practically begging Light to take up L's title in order to bring down Kira. He almost had to manually suppress a snigger that rose in his throat by covering his mouth with his hand. It was _so easy_. Compared to what he had to deal with when Ryuzaki was alive…now everything was being handed to him on a silver platter.

_As it should,_ Light declared wordlessly, _I'm the one who's cleaning this world of those dirty, immoral cretins. All of you should be thanking me on your knees._ Even as he thought this, he knew the importance of why he has to go through this. Now, as L, he has complete control of all the most powerful political leaders across the globe. _Kira_ is now law.

And besides, when his utopia is achieved, when evil is a thing of the past, everyone will love and honor the very ground he walks on. His story of the hardships he went through for the sake of a better world, the story of a boy who threw away his humanity (the sacrificial lamb turned sacrificial God), in order to bring justice to those who he deemed unforgivably evil, will make the people appreciate him even more.

He was overjoyed, victorious, because _he_ won. Not L.

Light stomped down anything that stemmed out of that fact. L was dead, because he killed him. Gone. Just as he needed him to be, in order for his beautiful utopia to blossom and grow into the perfect world that all the good people deserve. It was necessary.

_He was going to do the same thing to me._ Light told himself caustically, when the mysterious ach in his own heart screamed for his attention, _if I didn't kill him, he would have had Misa and I executed. _

So as he stood over L's grave the night the detective was buried, under that cold orange sky, the tears that slide down his cheeks were because he was happy. Nothing else…because it couldn't be anything of greater importance than his ultimate goal. His New World.

--

War's came to a grinding halt, criminal rates have taken a nosedive in percentages, and prisons weren't crammed full of people anymore. A new religion was born to worship and praise the efforts of the God of Justice, Kira, and thousands took part in it. They thanked him for all of the blessing's he bestowed upon the world in the form of divine judgment, by ridding every one of the rotten one's among them. For how could a mere human be capable of killing someone on the other side of the planet with no visible form of help? Only a handful of individuals know of the Death Note's existence, and that handful either had a duty to keep it a secret to avoid panic among the public, or was too scared to open their mouths in protest against this religion. Whichever was the case, it suited Light all the same.

Although, he was a little surprised at how fast everything came along, because he hadn't expected so many regular citizens to threaten others using the Kira name. It was easy enough; all they had to do was put up a picture with the person's name that made them angry and a reason why they were to be judged. Not that Light or Misa would pay any attention to them. So it wasn't just Kira that wrong-doers had to be wary of, but everyone around them also.

Everything…was going so smoothly. Better even.

"Liiight," Misa crooned softly, wrapping her arms around Light's shoulders from behind where he was sitting at his desk. "You've been working so hard for the investigation team, even though you don't have to. You should go to bed with Misa…." She whined as she delicately nipped at his ear lobe in an attempt to seduce him.

Light didn't respond for a long moment, and Misa mistook this as an invitation to continue. It was always a bother when his blond partner would try to entice him into sleeping with her, but he was grateful that she had finally stopped jumping him from all sides after he lost his self-control and started yelling at her a few months back. Save for the small number of times he gave in and bedded her, he hardly ever touched her if he could help it. Because whenever he did, he wouldn't see Misa.

It took awhile for him to accept that Ryuzaki hadn't left his mind completely. He used to wave it off as pride for bringing down his greatest enemy using his own intellect, but as a few years slowly rolled by, he couldn't deny it anymore.

Light cursed to himself, which came out as a small hiss, just as his girlfriend got bold enough to lick the base of his neck with her warm tongue. She also took this as a sign to continue, so she did with much held back enthusiasm.

_This is ridiculous. But…ever since he died, everything's been so…_boring_. _Light almost outwardly sighed, _I admit, I do miss the challenges he put up. _But it was a necessary sacrifice. _I can't let my own selfish desire for fun override my ultimate goal. _

"Light, you're so tense!" Misa said in a slightly breathless voice, "You poor thing…come on, let Misa help you forget about everything for a while…."

He finally let out a loud sigh as he began to shut down his computer. "Misa," he started gently, as if speaking with a small child, "I'm sorry, but I'm really not in the mood for this."

Getting up from his swivel chair, he made his way to the kitchen, leaving his down-trodden roommate by herself in her unseen lingerie.

She didn't understand why he does this to himself sometimes, _he's thinking about "that thing" again,_ Misa thought, as she despondently made her way to the bedroom. She had noticed that whenever Light would start thinking about a certain "thing", he wouldn't respond to any of her advances at all, preferring to brush her off and be left alone. She couldn't figure out what it was, but she knew that when he wasn't thinking about it, or at least forcing himself not to, he would go along with her.

_Misa doesn't know what to make of it, but Misa can't ask him about it…Light got so angry last time._ She sat on the edge of the bed distractedly as she gazed at the opposite wall with dull eyes. Then she murmured to herself, "What do I have to do to make him love me?"

--

"It wouldn't hurt to be a little nicer to her, ya know." Ryuk said while Light kneaded his eyebrows with his fingers at the kitchen table.

"Why do you care?" he shot back irritably, glaring at the shinigami through his umber colored bangs.

Ryuk cocked his head to the side, "I don't," he said simply, "but that doesn't mean that I like seeing her all down like this. Humans are much more interesting when they're excited and happy. More unpredictable and less boring."

Light ignored him and went back to moping, his face buried in his hands with his elbows holding him up from the table.

"Hey."

"…"

"Light, don't ignore me."

"…"

"Liiight." He imitated Misa's whine, but in a deeper and grainier tone.

Suddenly, when Light cracked his eyes open towards the table surface, he found that he was face to face with Ryuk's ever grinning façade. He had gone through the wood from underneath and was peering up at him in curiosity.

The young man jumped and hurriedly pushed himself away from the cackling shinigami and scowled. "What was that for?" he seethed loudly.

"I don't like being ignored, you know that." Ryuk chuckled, very pleased with the reaction that he received. Instead of standing up, he sat on his hunches from where he was, giving the appearance that only the shinigami's head was situated on the table while the rest of him was sweetly hidden from view.

"Okay fine then, what do you want?"

"Hmm, well I have all the apples I want right now…so what _would _I want, Light?" he answered inquiringly, snickering at the same time.

He glowered at the head from the other side of the kitchen. Yes, other than apples, all Ryuk really wants from anything is some fun, just to relieve his boredom. "You want to tell me something related to the investigation. Either good or bad."

The shinigami gave another throaty laugh, "Yeah, I guess you can say that." He lifted his bulging fluorescent eyes to the ceiling in thought. "But you're only about half right. Hm, maybe not even that"

Light crossed his arms in front of chest to give the appearance that he was waiting patiently, when in actuality he was irritated by the shinigami's evasiveness. "Alright. Do you plan on telling me, or are you waiting for me to figure it out myself?"

"Nah," Ryuk stood back up so that he was visible from the waist up. "I'll tell you because all this depression hanging about here is getting really old."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you, for one thing." Ryuk said simply, "Light, your bad mood rubs off on your girlfriend, so this apartment is almost getting as gloomy as my world." He pointed a long, boney finger at him, "If you cared about him so much, you could have just thought of a different solution to your problem. You're defiantly smart enough to do that."  
Light stared at him, stunned. "What…are you talking about, Ryuk?"

"I'm talking about your detective."

It felt as though a heavy weight slammed into his chest. Detective? He isn't talking about anyone on the task force, because he's speaking in the past tense…. Is he that transparent? How does this simple-minded shinigami know what's going through Light's mind?

And as if to tease Light's already muddled thoughts, Ryuk merely glanced at his face and answered his unvoiced question. "You may be a good actor, Light, but even the best actors have to take a break. And when that happens, I can read you like a book. It's just a matter of presumption." his ever grinning countenance widened, "Your response just now cleared all doubt."

Light fought back an angry flush that threatened to show on his cheeks. "Where are you going with this, Ryuk?" he asked in a low voice.

"Hnn," Ryuk stuck out his jaw grotesquely, looking much like some kind of mutated fish, thinking. "'Once the victim's name has been written, that individual's death can never be averted.' " He quoted from the Death Note rules that he himself wrote down. " 'It is useless to try to erase names written in the Death Note with erasers or to white them out.' "

"Yes, I'm well aware of these rules, Ryuk." Light sighed, walking over to the counter to prepare himself some tea.

"I never said that you didn't." the shinigami replied, also moving toward the fruit basket that carried only a few more apples from a day's worth of his appetite, "But I'd wager that you don't know about the exception."

Light paused ever so slightly before continuing to heat up the kettle. "Exception?"

"Well, you see, when you revoked your ownership of the note, I had nowhere else to go but to the shinigami realm." He started, "And when I was there, I managed to get a hold of another little treasure, but this one's very rare, so it's a real catch." He gave a little creepy laugh. "I've been holding onto it, until whenever I thought would be the most interesting time I'd give it you would be."

At this point, Light just stood facing the heating tea kettle, glowering at the shinigami at his right, a frown tugging at his lips. What an ass this death god is.

"Don't get all angry yet, I haven't even gotten to the best part!" he exclaimed mockingly.

"Then get on with it, Ryuk."

Instead of informing him of "the best part", he shuffled around the feathers seated on top of his shoulders and pulled out something very small from it. Then held it out between his boney index finger and thumb, before Light's face.

"An eraser?" Light wasn't sure what to make of it when it was gently placed in his palm. It was just a plain white, rectangular eraser with a black paper covering wrapped around it. There weren't any decorations on it, just a very plain, small…eraser.

"Is this a joke or are you serious?" he asked.

"It'll be more fun if you figure that one out for yourself." Ryuk chuckled cryptically, who then drifted out of the kitchen, purposely leaving Light hanging.

_What was that about?_ Light looked at the little parcel in his hand in confusion, and absently stuffed it in his pocket when the kettle began to whistle.

He sat at the table, sipping at his tea until he noticed Rem's Death Note on the table. _I don't recall that being there before… maybe Misa forgot to put it away and I was too preoccupied to notice it._

He dragged it over to himself so that it lay in front of him, flipping through the pages absentmindedly. It was filled with Misa's small, loopy handwriting, and Light's quick eyes skimmed over the names, not really caring what he was seeing, because he knew that Misa always did her best at following his instructions. Kill the unforgivable sinners.

But as he continued to scan through the pages, making his way to the front of the notebook, he suddenly came across a more coarse and rigid type of handwriting. Rem's. This peaked his curiosity, wondering what kind of names he would find. And Light wasn't disappointed. There were some really old sounding names, such as Branton of Vail, Alegra Doucettie, Morio Languani, Hue Xiang-Yu, Kang Jang-Geum…it made him contemplate on how old this shinigami was.

He kept leafing through the notebook until he came to the last few names Rem had written. Orion Galbria, Ginzo Kaneboshi, Quillish Wammy, L Lawliet….

Light stopped.

Quillish Wammy was Watari's real name. Aizawa had found an article in a newspaper concerning him, how he was an inventor who had set up orphanages with the wealth he had established. Light never looked at Rem's Death Note before now, not because he didn't have any time, but because he didn't feel the need to. And…the last name that shinigami wrote down was…L's.

His ultimate victory was right here. L's name. _Lawliet_.

It sounded strange, putting the letter and that surname together, but that was just how the guy was; strange. Maybe that's an understatement, not that it mattered. That was what made him so interesting, and entertaining; the weird way he did things, from how he crouched in his chair, how he held things, his sickening diet of sugar and his little mannerisms. But most of all, his unpredictability.

What would happen if L was still alive, not as a detective, but as something else? Light began to wonder, would he still oppose Kira? Would he still try to hinder him, or applaud him? As a detective, it's practically his duty to go after someone who takes away the lives of others, no matter how filthy they were, so without that obligation…would L accept Light's justice?

If L did approve, and helped him, then Light's utopia would have defiantly already been achieved. Against the pair of them, evil couldn't stand a chance, good people could reign in peace and there will be no more misery or poverty.

But that's all Light can do, think about the "could have"s and "would have"s. _It could have been._ If he had met L in different circumstances, then things _would_ _have_ turned out differently, but this isn't so. Light killed L, because if he didn't, L would have killed Light. But still, Light didn't expect everything to be so trite with him gone….

He stared dimly at the page before him, ignoring the hiccupping noise coming from the bedroom. His brown eyes traced the heavy set writing of the deceased shinigami, every detail coming to his attention. What if… Light paused a moment when he noticed a small pressure in his hip when he moved his legs, and remembered that he stuck that eraser into his pocket. He extracted it from its confinement, and stared at it, long and hard.

Ryuk had said that it was rare, but then again, juicy apples were apparently rare in the shinigami realm too. Was he supposed to believe that this little thing had special properties also? Like the death note? It could be possible, he thought to himself, with the way he was so secretive about it…if he wanted Light to erase someone's name?

He was now certain that the death note wasn't on the table before, Misa was very careful of where she left it, since this was the only physical evidence of the pair of them being Kira, so it had to have been Ryuk.

Light put two and two together. He gave him an eraser, left the death note on the kitchen table for Light to find after provoking him about "caring" for L, and complained how drab the atmosphere was getting around the place. Ryuk wants Light to erase L's name…but _why_? For fun, of course.

He stared at L's name again.

--

"M-Misa will do _anything_ for Light," she sobbed on the bed, "But Misa doesn't kn-know what he wants…Light never tells Misa anything!" she said in a high pitched whine.

_She's at the end of her rope_, Ryuk sighed to himself, idly standing to the side as a silent spectator. _I guess I'll be seeing more of these outbursts from now on._

He didn't say anything to comfort her, just loomed in front of the window with that wide grin on his face. Something alighted in his bulging eyes and a low chuckle rumbled in his throat. "Hey," he finally said, and the blond stopped her crying momentarily, surprised that he said anything. "I'm going out."

"H-uh? Where?" she hiccupped.

"If Light asks, tell him I just need to check on something. I'll be back." As he said this, the shinigami's wings unfolded themselves from his back and he turned to phase through the wall. With a last little wave of his huge hands, he flew into the dark sky and disappeared.

There was a bubble of excitement growing by the second inside of his long, skinny chest, and he wondered offhandedly if it might be for naught. But when he landed at his destination, his bulging eyes enlarged, his grin stretched even further, and he couldn't help but laugh. No, not laugh; _cackle_ in pure delight and jubilation as a low keening moan sounded from below the ground at the shinigami's feet.

--

"Ryuk said that he'll be back," Misa whispered contently, nuzzling into Light's arm.

He sighed and threw a blanket over their naked bodies, still moist with sweat and other fluids from having sex. "That's all?"

"He said that he needs to check on something…" she yawned, and lifted her eyes to meet his. "Misa loves Light with all her heart…."

"Yes, me too." Light replied quietly, although not looking at her. Soon after Ryuk left Misa's crying had increased in volume, if by a little, and Light finally decided to do something about it. All of this acting was grating on his nerves since he can't stop pretending to be someone else, regardless of where he was, for a second. But it couldn't be helped; self-sacrifice is the price for being the God of the New World.

Settling himself under the covers, he contemplated Ryuk's odd behavior as of late, to take his mind off of himself. He noticed that the shinigami would stare at him longer then was necessary for the past few days, or stand around gazing at the ceiling in, what seemed to be, deep thought. When Light would ask him about this, Ryuk would carelessly answer that it was nothing "at least at the moment," he would add, and never expanded on the subject.

_I already know that he's up to something, but whatever it is, I have to make sure that it won't interfere with my ultimate goal, somehow._

And speaking of odd behavior, what was up with Ryuk and that eraser?

The smell of freshly turned soil caught his attention and, as if he were summoned, Light spotted a tall shadow by the window when he opened his eyes. Only a sharp intake of breath indicated his surprise, and he surmised that his eyes slid closed when he was thinking to himself. At his side Misa had fallen asleep, so he hissed in a muffled voice, "Where the hell were you, Ryuk?"

"Somewhere." Was all he said.

Light closed his eyes again to hold in his irritation. It was no use trying to get anything out of the shinigami when he was like this, so he didn't bother pursuing the matter. Instead, he carefully detangled himself from his sleeping partner and began to put his clothes back on. "As long as it doesn't interfere with my plans, do whatever the hell you want." Light clipped, "Now _I'm_ going out for bit."

"Hm?" Ryuk merely leaned in closer to the room in response.

"You can come if you want, Ryuk, but I doubt you'll enjoy yourself." He said simply as he pulled on a thin sweater.

Without hesitating, Ryuk followed his human out the door with an excited gleam in his bug eyes. "Going out in the middle of the night, Light?"

"Apparently so."

Despite the lack of information, Ryuk bared his pointed teeth in delight, looking expectant as he trailed along behind Light outside the apartment.

Despite it being so late, or early, Light held his head high as he walked. He knew where he was going, it wasn't terribly far. And besides, he hadn't had the chance to walk around outdoors for awhile, other than to the car and out.

He observed his surroundings in his peripheral vision, so as to look as if his eyes never wavered from straight ahead. He noticed a homeless man huddled on the side of the street to his left, a couple of drunk women trying to keep themselves upright and giggling madly on the other side of the road, and someone cursing very loudly in his car as he sped by, well over the speed limit. _I suppose these kinds of people will always be around,_ Light sighed to himself. Well, it's not like drunks were necessarily evil, it's when they know that a certain action isn't right, but does it anyway that makes them so. But that guy that was speeding….

His destination came into view and his eyes softened.

It looked like a small, European style house with large windows and an ankle high wire fence extending in front of it. Through the big windows, wide arrays of flowers were visible, most of them sleeping, the petals curled up into themselves. But that wasn't what Light was gazing at. The archway leading into the fancy flower shop was lathered in beautiful white flowers, stretching out to their fullest in the moon beams.

He was extremely lucky that there was any flower shop in Tokyo that was open at twelve in the morning, but that was just the way he was. Lucky. Otherwise he wouldn't have picked up the Death Note in the first place. He purchased a small packet of moonflower seeds from the elderly cashier.

"What are you gonna do with those?" Ryuk inquired.

Light didn't answer. He always liked moonflowers, not just because of their unique beauty. It was just very ironic that moonflowers, which bloom at night with the moon, were closely related to morning glories, which bloom in the bright sun that comes with morning. Seemingly opposites, but in the same genus.

He continued walking, but not from where he came. Light had no idea why he was making these pit stops and not simply taking a normal early morning stroll. He felt the strange need to get out and go somewhere. At first, he wanted to look at the moonflowers, since he was up already and hadn't seen a fully bloomed one for a very long time. But as he went on his way, he realized that it wasn't the flower shop that he actually wanted to go to.

He came before another fence, but this was much taller than the previous one and made of thick, black iron. Light entered with a straight face, though unsettled by Ryuk's insane chuckles that he let out without shame. He wasn't sure whether or not to tell him to shut the hell up or not.

He hated not knowing why he was even here in the first place. It was just…a tugging feeling he had in his chest. Light already admitted to himself that he missed Ryukazi's company, wasn't that enough? He walked at a steady pace down the neat rows of tall, narrow headstones, marked with names and dates.

Then he paused mid-step.

"?!"

Light stood rooted in place. Ahead, illuminated by the moonlight, was a huddled figure lying on top of Ryuzaki's grave in front of the nameless cross-shaped headstone. At first, he got the impression that someone was praying in a humbled manner before the cross, but when Light slowly began making his way toward the grave again he realized with a jolt…it looked more like a skeleton tinted a pale, fleshy color than a person. It was breathing.

Light stopped several feet away from the figure. The skeleton was male, that much was certain, because he had no clothes to hide his pasty, sunken skin stretching over his frame. Long, matted black hair draped over his shoulder bones and concealed his face, which seemed to be pressed into the churned up earth. He shivered with every breath his lungs dragged in, and twitched when it was let out. Light wasn't sure if this was because he was cold or if he was in pain. Possibly both.

After taking this unusual sight in, Light acknowledged the shinigami's hysterical laughter that echoed around the dark cemetery, and couldn't help but feel dread clawing at his insides.

_Stop overreacting, _he chided himself, _this guy's probably just paying his respects to the dead in his own weird way. _

Light didn't want anything to do with the man, because quite frankly, he was giving him the creeps. But if the other hadn't been on the very grave that the young man intended to visit, avoiding him wouldn't have been an issue.

"You should go help him, Light." Ryuk hummed gleefully behind him.

Damn shinigami. He might as well hold up a shining neon pink sign proclaiming: "I'm a scheming douchbag! And you'll find out why in just a moment!"

This little trip to the cemetery was becoming very grim.

Nonetheless, Light slowly walked over to the skeletal man's side, and not sure of what else to do, he asked gently "Sir? Would you like some assistance?"

The figure's whole body flinched at the question, and seemed to curl more into himself. He slowly turned his head in a jerky motion (as if he was remembering how to) in the general direction of Light's shins, but his hair made an effective veil to hide from view. This action weakened Light's resolve, even more so when the mysterious man suddenly started making a horrible hacking sound, as if he was trying to cough out everything from the inside, and Light was taken aback. Intertwined with the hacking were groans of pain.

The young man was at a loss of what to do. Here was a strangely familiar figure, looking to be on the verge of death and he felt obligated to aide him in some way. Why was that? Light gazed down on a man that was still amazingly alive, crouched down and gently placed his thin sweater on his skeletal back. This kindness went unnoticed as the man slumped, worn and tired. He had passed out.

Light decided the least he could do was to take him to the hospital, the man looked like the epitome of sickness. He turned him around, so that his face was finally revealed. The moon accentuated the shadows on his face, so there were what seemed to be black hollows for his large eyes, and sunken cheeks making him look like a dead man. But nonetheless, he looked familiar…the pointed nose, chin, European features with a tiny bit of Asian mixed in, colorless thin lips…_large_ eyes.

Light seized up. Just as he had when L had breathed his last, so young Yagami held him now as he slept before the cross.

Ryuk continued his hysterical laughter.

_______________________________________________________________________

A/N: *cower* I know that this chapter is kind of dry and went by really fast, but please review! And thank you for reading!


	2. Melancholia

Warnings: Yaoi, but right now I think it's going to lean on a more one-sided kind of thing….

Disclaimer: I is not owning Death Note. Nor its characters.

A/N: Thank you! I heart you all! :D

And thank you **fantasies4eva, jjwitdaheydiddydiddy, Sioen, **and **simply anonymous**! I was actually procrastinating on this fic, telling myself "oh, I'll do that in a minute…." And then I read your reviews. That was all last night mind you, I actually fell asleep at my laptop.

Ok now to the story at hand. I can't remember, is Ryuk attached to Light? I think he is, but for some reason I also think that he isn't…maybe it's just me being stupid? _o; Also, please tell me if some of the characters begin to stray from their manga-set personalities, I really try to keep them on track but sometimes they rebel against me and run off on their own.

This chapter skips around a lot, so it may get a little confusing. The scenes where Light's stressing out about what to do with skeletal L is earlier that day, when all is still dark as the sun hasn't come up yet.

Melancholia

"Hey Light,"

"Yes, Matsuda-san?"

The detective hesitated for a brief moment before answering as he stood at the doorway, holding a tray of coffee for everyone else in the room full of computer screens, "Are you feeling alright? You look a little, um, worn out."

Light raised an eyebrow, though keeping his eyes on the computer screen he was working at, "Do I?"

"Yeah, a little bit." At this, the rest of the investigation team paused in their work to witness this observation. "Have you been getting any sleep?"

His father, Soichiro Yagami, spoke up, "I think Matsuda-san is right." He said with a concerned expression wrinkling his forehead. His son finally looked up. "How much sleep have you been getting, son?"

Light let out a little exasperated laugh. Though he didn't show it, he was a bit unsettled that his fatigue was picked up on so fast. Matsuda was more perceptive than he gave him credit for. "I've been getting enough. I'm fine dad, really, you're just overreacting."

"Don't be such a workaholic, kid." Ide said from the other side of the room, "Your still young, spend some time with your girlfriend."

After a few more attempts at staying where he was, Light finally gave in. These old guys were persistent when led by his dad. Nonetheless, he was relatively glad that they basically kicked him out of Kira headquarters, because he was exhausted. Last night's events left him with not even a wink of sleep, and now, worry took its place. He needed time to think things through, form a plan.

A plan for what? Light allowed himself a little sigh as he stood outside of the building.

"You seem to be kinda stressed out, Light." Ryuk chuckled, that wide grin that never left his face since he had followed his human out last night still plastered on.

Light ignored him as he always did in public, but he really did want to talk with the shinigami now that he was free from the others. So the handsome young man settled himself on a park bench after strolling around for a couple minutes and flipped out his cell phone.

"Hey, Ruyk."

"Hn?" the shinigami's attention was fully captured, as he didn't expect the human to start talking to him.

Light shifted his cell phone to his other ear and continued, "That prank last night was really dangerous, you know? I really think that you should have left Ryuzaki alone."

"Oh, so you're gonna talk to me like you're talking through that little thing? Alright." Ryuk said. "Well you know why I decided to do it; I told you yesterday didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. But there has to be a _story_ behind everything."

"Huh?"

Light suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the shinigami's slow understanding, and glanced around to double check if anyone on the task force was nearby. There wasn't. "The sentimental value of that eraser of yours."

"There isn't anything sentimental about it, unless I count the last time I showed it to a human. That was an interesting show, but not as much as this one."

_Finally_, Light thought to himself, _this conversation was going somewhere useful._ Ryuk wasn't one to pick up on hints of subtly, for sure. "Why? What happened?"

"Well it was here in Japan, but I don't remember where. Anyway, a small human in 'middle school' picked it up and wanted to use it as a journal. Ended up killing off all the bullies in his class and the police got involved…oh yeah, and one of his classmates picked up the other note that was dropped and started giving everyone in that class heart attacks and was going crazy. And then he tried to kill-"

"What does this have to do with anything?" Light cut in, though he already knew the answer to his own question, but he was getting impatient with the shinigami.

"Huh? I thought that you'd have figured that out, Light." Ryuk truly looked perplexed that this intelligent human asked such an inquiry, oblivious to the fact that its second purpose was to pick up the pace on the conversation. "After almost killing his own friend, the two of them ended up erasing all the names they had written down. And that was that."

"When did all of this happen?"

"Hmmm," the shinigami scratched his spiky head in thought. "I'd say about…fifteen years ago according to the human calendar."

Light was slightly taken aback. That wasn't very long ago…. "Why haven't I heard about any of this before?"

"I guess you human's really know how to keep big secrets from everyone else." Ryuk said. "You'd know a lot about that, Light."

--

It was easy to carry him around, one arm holding him up from behind the knees and the other around his shoulders, wrapped up in his sweater to cover his pale skeletal body. So in that moment of panicked realization of his identity, Light's only thought was to find a place to hide him in. But where? He couldn't think of where to put him; his apartment was defiantly out, the hospital…? No, Ryuzaki's a dead man, and dead men aren't supposed to be breathing. He couldn't leave him on the side of the street or something, there are always people roaming around everywhere and he wouldn't risk the off-chance that someone would recognize him. Light looked to an old church…and dismissed it immediately. The young man sighed to himself, this was beginning to really stress him out.

"Looking for a hiding place, Light?" Ryuk snickered.

He whipped around to face the shinigami and stopping him in his tracks, fury blazing in his almond shaped eyes, "Are you suggesting a location or mocking me? If it's the latter then don't waste your time." He turned back around and tried to think.

"Why are you trying so hard?"

Light paused a moment in his walking but then continued on. "I'm not." He clipped, and something brightened on his face as he thought of a place, tightening his hold on the bundle of bones in his arms, "Of course…"

He changed directions and headed toward the main part of the city again, absently wrapping his sweater around the prone figure as much as he could and propping his head onto Light's own shoulder, hiding the face under long dark hair. Light put on an expression of annoyance and exasperation when passing groups of people, giving the impression that he had found a friend that had passed out drunk doing god knows what that cost him his clothes.

It wasn't perfect but it will have to do for now, he thought to himself as the small building came into view. It looked abandoned, which was fine, but Light sincerely hoped that anyone seeking adventure wouldn't look here. He would be forced to kill them if things got out of hand.

He ducked under the boards nailed across the doorway to ward off people from entering, and went up the flight of creaking stairs. This three-story building used to be an old office-type of place for a small company that went down a few years back, and the rickety tables and chairs scattered about gave the area a haunted sort of atmosphere. He went to the topmost floor, which were three levels high.

L was completely still in Light's arms, so if it hadn't been for the sight he had witnessed at the cemetery he would have been almost convinced that he was carrying a corpse. He entered the only room on the top floor, probably the main office or something, and gingerly placed him on an old desk, wishing that he had a blanket with him.

"When do you think he'll wake up?" he asked his invisible companion quietly.

"So you gonna keep him here, then?" Ryuk replied loudly. "And by the looks of it, I don't think he'll be getting up anytime soon."

"There's no where else. Besides, I can't very well bring him home with me now can I?" Light didn't know why, but he felt that he should keep his voice down to a whisper, as if worried that being too loud would shatter that fragile body. This was absurd, he knew, but nonetheless. "I suppose I would be expecting too much from you to ask you to watch him as I go out for a bit?"

--

"Yeah, I would wouldn't I?" Light answered delicately. "Anyway, have your friends from home heard about this?"

Ryuk kept up his grinning façade, actually understanding that 'friends from home' meant the other shinigami from his realm. "No one really knows much about that eraser, just that as long as the body hasn't been cremated, anyone killed by the Death Note can be revived. Even if they've been dead for three years too, from the looks of this."

"There has to be more." The two-sided young man said, "It completely defies those two rules you so kindly repeated for me yesterday."

Ryuk shrugged his feathery shoulders and held his skeletal hands out to his sides in a show of helplessness. "I honestly don't know what else except for what I told you, Light. No one does. Well actually…" he dropped his lanky arms so that they dangled, "maybe the shinigami king would know."

Light stared calmly at the clouded sky, "But you don't like talking to him, huh?" he said.

"Exactly." He said simply. There was a long stretch of silence after Light mumbled a fake good-bye, and almost looked up when the shinigami finally broke it. "That guy…L. You said that he was dangerous, so why haven't you killed him yet?"

--

By now the dusty office room was cleaned out and easier to breathe in. The small, loosely boarded window was covered by a thin sweater and thicker blankets were draped over the abandoned office desk. If one were to look closer, a slight mound could be seen as the body of L. Light removed the sweater from the window to let a little sunshine in and went over to another small table to add to the increasing supply of water bottles and food. Real food, not embodiments of diabetes.

Upon being forced to leave L alone in order to fetch some blankets and cleaning supplies, Misa had woken up during his hurried packing. For a moment she went into a panic, thinking that he was leaving her until he softly told her that he was merely letting an old friend borrow some cleaning spray. Thankfully she accepted that lame excuse and dropped off again, still tired from their previous activities.

During all of that, Light couldn't help but feel annoyed by Ryuk's actions. But as he finally made it outside with a bulging bag hanging from his shoulder, he figured that there was an upside to this predicament. _I'm doing this because I want him to see my utopia, _he said to himself. Maybe if L sees what he was fighting against and realizes that _he_ was in the wrong, than L would help him eliminate the filth in the world.

But Light knew that convincing him wouldn't be easy. Still though, if L were to stand by his side then the pros would greatly outweigh the cons.

He squeezed through the boarded doorway quickly and trudged up the two flights of creaking stairs to the top floor. When he reached the flaccid body on the office desk, Light gently lifted him into a sitting position and trickled small amounts of watered down rice porridge into his mouth. L didn't stir, but his chest rose and fell a little more evenly now and Light would wait until his swallow reflex kicked in to give the pale skeleton more.

And for the first time that night, Ryuk stood by quietly, his annoying snickers absent. The shinigami decided that, since he had stirred up enough entertainment for himself to last a while, he would watch this L. It's good material to tell to the other shinigami when he would inevitably return to his realm, since no one remembers the properties of that eraser.

_Well until then, this is going to be very interesting,_ Ryuk thought to himself, as a small unconscious smile softened Light's face as his patient continued to eat.

--

He felt…warm. Warmer than he had been in a long, long time. But why was that?

Pale, sunken eyes slowly blinked blearily from under a thick mound of blankets in a small room. They lingered on the blank ceiling above and made their way from side to side without disturbing the rest of his thin body. Taking in his surroundings, he didn't know what else to do…he had a feeling that he should be thinking about other things now, but his mind was still foggy and it hurt to think too hard. He slowly began clenching his fingers and toes and found that the tendons didn't crack and tear like how he thought they would. All of his joints seemed okay, so he slowly burrowed deeper into the blankets to hide from the tiny, dull rays of sunlight sneaking into the old room.

It was frustrating that he couldn't fathom how and why he was in this place, much less broaching the subject without sporting a throbbing headache. But before he began to try to understand what the hell was going on, he dozed into another spell.

A/N: And who might this last scene be of? ;)

Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think!


	3. Descent into Madness

Disclaimer: if I owned Death Note, there would be some yaoi thrown in there.

Descent into Madness

The still night nudged the thin figure awake from his dreamless sleep, and he wasn't sure if it was his mind playing tricks on him when he turned and peered up at the touch. He had definitely felt a large hand lightly push his shoulder, as if whatever it was wanted him to get up. But there was only darkness.

He tried to call out, but his throat wouldn't obey this demanding request as it wasn't working properly. Why was that? He tired to remember something, but all he could get before he unwillingly fell back asleep was merciless pain, and cold, cold wind.

The next time he woke up there was something pushing against him again, but this time the culprit showed its face. A small black cat with yellow-green eyes gazed calmly into his own as it perched beside his head. It purred at him and he thought vaguely that he wanted to touch it, but sleep overtook him once more.

--

The frosted wind blew into anyone in its way, including Kira. It had been a month since that night and L showed very little signs of waking from his deep sleep. But Light had decided that he was going to show L his New World, so he had enough determination to nurse him back to health for however long it took.

But now it seemed that he didn't have to wait much longer as a soft rasping sound was coming from the mound of thick blankets.

Light held his breath, suddenly nervous. About what? He chastised himself for acting like an idiot and regained his composure, placing the food he had brought on a small table cluttered with other items. He quietly made his way to the makeshift bed, having replaced the office desk as soon as he managed to get a day off to sneak one in.

"L?" he whispered. A quiet cough answered him, and Light slowly pushed the blankets away from his ward's face.

For the first time, L's eyes were open, if only slightly. They had a fevered gleam to them and the color of his irises were a light grey instead of the obsidian black he was used to seeing. Light suspected that this was due to the sudden resurrection. The reason being that the color of one's eyes is determined by the amount of melanin in the iris, somewhat like a person's skin, so after being "recomposed" out of, well, nothing, it would be fairly reasonable to assume that his eyes were completely red at the cemetery.

The young man was pleased to see that he had more color in his face as well, but immediately decided to dress him in warmer clothes after a hot bath when L's blue lips came into view. With a hospital nurse-like bearing, he started up the bath inside of the private bathroom next to the office and placed the thin man inside of the steaming water when it was filled.

Only a couple weeks ago did Light resolve to risk having a plumber over to get the water running again, but only after intensive research did he find the perfect candidate. The plumber he hired had raped one of his customers' daughters earlier that year, but was let off with a warning for some obscene reason, so when the filth was finished with his work Light immediately awarded him with a heart attack. Not after paying the company he worked for, of course.

When he was finished, the two men were back at the bed and as Light was pulling a thick sweater over the thin mans' body, L slumped onto Light and slowly wrapped his fingers around the younger man's wrist. He opened his mouth and started heaving his chest, and Light briefly thought that he was about to get sick all over him. But it didn't take long for him to realize that L was trying to speak as he coughed and let out a strange sound.

"H…ooh…_who_…." He said in a painfully gravely voice.

Light stayed silent.

L's hold on his wrist, although not at all strong, began to tremble. "_Who_?" His voice had cracked horribly, and the younger man broke the hold effortlessly. He got up to fetch a water bottle and some warm, soft rice cake, opened the water bottle and pushed it into L's hands.

If he hadn't known better, Light wouldn't have recognized the look of annoyance subtly featured on the other's face. Nonetheless, L dutifully lifted the bottle to his lips and began to drink, albeit slowly and haltingly.

--

Another month passes ~la de la~

--

"Light? Have you seen those cream puffs that were in the cabinet last night?"

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading over to his girlfriend's voice. "Yes. They were for Sayu." He held the paper up to his face again, "If you wanted some I'll go get more today."

"Oh…so that's where you were this morning." Misa's faltering smile strengthened after some hesitation, "And you don't have to do that, I was just wondering."

She turned back around to sift through the refrigerator to look for a late afternoon snack, a little stung by the curt answers, despite the offer. She had noticed that he was getting more distant from not only her, but also the investigation.

_Poor Light,_ she thought to herself, _he must be getting tired of pretending all the time. Misa will have to do something fast before she loses him completely._

But for all her sympathies, she didn't know for the life of her what she could do. Light would have that faraway look in his eyes as if in deep thought whenever she looked his way, which was quite a lot. She used to ask what he would be thinking about, but he would always answer as briefly as possible, eager to return to his own world.

The only thing her faithful mind could come up with to excuse his behavior was that the task of creating the New World was finally beginning to show, and if she didn't help him soon then her knight's shining armor would inevitably crack under the strain.

As she licked the remaining traces of yogurt off the spoon she used, Misa resolved to do everything and more she was able in order to bring the utopia they're fighting for to Light.

--

L knew that there wasn't nearly enough sugar in his diet for him to sustain a continuous train of thought for as long as he wanted it to. And here, sitting at the foot of his makeshift bed on a neatly folded napkin, were a cluster of small pastries. This act surprised the man, as he was sure his caretaker knew him well enough that he particularly enjoyed sweet things, such as the occasional daifuku, but until now didn't allow him to have more than one at a time.

He recoiled at the thought of the amount of control his caretaker had over him, remembering how much he despised being caged, in any aspect.

His hand paused in midair in the space between the puffs and himself as that realization hit him. He _remembered_? That would require a past, which he can't recall. Hm. More questions.

The hand dropped and L simply crawled over to the cream puffs and chomped down on one, without bothering to pick it up. Sprawled on the bed, slowly massacring the air-filled pastries with his mouth, L sulked.

It was a norm for him to sport a headache from thinking too much, a norm that irritated him to the point of madness. He had come to the conclusion that he must be a clone of some sort, being that he was a grown man, although extremely weak, had no memory of anything up until a moment ago, and yet he can recite both the traditional and common Chinese alphabet like it was nothing. There were more things like this that he knew, things that he realized that he knew after waking up every other night, as if his brain was gathering this knowledge from somewhere, or simply recovering it? He could be suffering a severe case of amnesia, but that doesn't explain the pain and aches from simply breathing too fast or standing up for more than a minute at a time.

He sighed and stared at the remaining puffs. Then a familiar ping of curiosity made his fingers twitch and not long after, his caretaker walked into the domain.

The recuperating man peered up in a position that greeted the caretaker caused his right eyebrow to hike up his forehead.

"Are you having fun, L?"

He didn't answer immediately and instead looked back at the cream puff hovering over his mouth with the cream just about to drop onto his exposed tongue. But the consistency of it didn't allow this, much to his disappointment.

He dropped the rest of it into his mouth. "I am." He said in a muffled, scratchy voice.

"I dropped those off last morning."

"Thank you." he said. A moment later his eyebrows furrowed together ever-so-slightly as he thought about his caretakers statement. "This explains why my bladder is acting up, as I have been sleeping through the past forty-eight hours."

The caretaker nodded and half turned back towards the door, "Well then, now that I know you're still alive I'll be on my way."

"And why wouldn't I still be alive?"

He paused, and looked back at the former detective. He had gained at least fifty pounds in the past two months, and Light had cut off most of the man's long tangled hair the first week since he brought him in. It was now a black mess situated on his head, just past his ears, but still managed to stick up in all directions like it used to.

"For a number of reasons," he finally answered, "like catching a fever for example."

He sat back, the cream puffs gone, and studied his caretaker with a critical eye, which was a shade darker than before. "I think my body would be able to handle that." he said at length, and added, "May I ask you a second question?"

Light hesitated. "Maybe a little later," he said quietly, "I have some appointments to attend to soon." And he left.

--

_I know him…or at least, I knew him._ _And he knows me; there is no doubt about that._

He felt his stomach growl, but he was too tired to fetch himself some food from the table on the other side of the small room. His legs were only able to keep him standing long enough to do one errand at a time, and even then he has to steady himself against the wall or on the bathroom sink to keep upright. It was embarrassing, so when his caretaker had stopped helping him to do simple tasks such as tidying up in the bathroom, he was greatly relieved.

So he sat in his bed with the blankets piled high around him, staring at the locked door that his caretaker exited from through an opening in his fortress. His body retained little heat by itself, and it was cold in the room despite the portable heater beside him on the floor. But he didn't want to sleep the cold away like before.

Something was pushing at him from the back of his mind, begging for attention as its chameleon outfit blended in with the rest of his clouded thoughts. His attempts at extracting it were interrupted by his hunger pangs, but he knew that if he got up to get what he needed, sleep would sneak up on him from behind again and he'd find himself a couple more days into the future after waking up. He sighed.

"Meooow,"

The thin man flung the blankets to cover his face in surprise. "Meow?" the blankets muffled in reply.

"Reooow," the floor said back.

He peeked out of his blankets and searched the ground beside the bed with wide eyes. "Roar?'

"Reoow,"

"Ah…there you are." At the foot of the bed and its lower half hiding under it, lay a small black cat gazing up at him with bright yellow eyes. "You startled me."

She purred at him.

"I'm afraid that this room is occupied." He said gravely. "But for you, I may be able to make an exception." He slowly extracted his boney hand from the blankets and held it out to her. "In exchange for your body heat, of course."

For reasons of her own, the cat agreed to this arrangement and hopped onto the bed and curled up in front of the thin man, where he began stroking her fur. She was very warm compared to him, so the cat fulfilled her end of the bargain very well.

The sleek black fur was as dark as his own hair, but needless to say, it was much neater. It rumbled softly as she purred in delight under his gentle hand, her eyes squinting shut for a moment in relaxation.

"I hope you don't mind," He said quietly, positioning the blankets around them both. "but I think that I will confide my frustrations to you, as my caretaker doesn't seem to want to hear my bemoaning."

At this, the cat did appear to mind. She sat up and batted away his hand, yowling loudly.

"You are a very unkind little cat."

She coiled her body around so that she lay facing him, and locked eyes in what looked to be mirth. But as her gaze hardened, and the vertical pupils narrowed into tiny slits slicing through the bright solid yellow of her eyes, L realized that they looked vaguely similar too…shinigami eyes.

Shinigami.

That word rung in his ears like brazen bells furiously clanging off of each other.

"Shinigami, shinigami," he said aloud, "Shinigami…._Kira?"_ Why did he immediately think of that name when he said shinigami? But when he said that, something sparked in his tattered memories.

A flash of faces, black books, computers, T.V.'s, rain, people dying of heart attacks…yes, _he_ had a heart attack. But when? When did all of this happen? He strained to remember more and began chewing on his thumb. "No," he whispered, blinking his eyes rapidly in a futile attempt to fight away the sudden heaviness. "Not now, I can't sleep right now."

He bit into his thumb with increasing strength, not quite drawing blood but enough to make him wince in pain.

Kira, who is this Kira? And shinigami, why shinigami? In a desperate effort to regain more information he singled out one of the images he suddenly remembered. T.V.'s. There were always a wide number of T.V. screens piled on top of each other, each with different things displayed on the surface.

He detangled his legs from under the cat into a fetal position almost instinctively and wrapped his arm around his calf with the other arm still held to his mouth. Most of those screens had black and white videos on them…because most of the time they were surveillance tapes from security cameras. And that was because…he was trying to find someone. He always found what he was looking for, eventually. Always…until that one time….

That one time? What happened then? No, only once he couldn't find what he was looking for, but he knew why! He knew that he knew why, but he just couldn't remember!

He let out an irritated hiss and closed his eyes. Pieces of his memories were finally coming back to him, but mere pieces weren't enough. He needed more.

"Little Cat," he said softly, his voice heavy with fatigue, "will you…stay with me?"

She closed her eyes.

A/N: for the cat, that's a nice way of saying, "I'm not your babysitter." What a jerk. ;)

Thank you for your reviews! I cherish all of them! But a little more feedback wouldn't hurt though ;)

Misa: attention whore.

Zak: for my writing, most definitely. What's it to you?

Misa: I want my Light back!

Zak:…I shan't say anymore about what's to come. But! I sense a lot of drama brewing in the next chapter. *nods sagely*

Misa: hmph. Well anyway, Zak appreciates anyone who cares to read Zak's stories, and -*shifty eyes* -dances around like an idiot when a new review pops up…

Zak: What! Hey-!

Misa: until next time! Bye!


	4. The Haunted Palace

Disclaimer: I like frolicking in the gardens but I don't own Death Note.

Summary: yes I changed it…but it's still the same fic

The Haunted Palace

He would never admit it out loud, even to just himself, but Light had realized that he was much more…cheerful…before he touched the notebook again.

_Saving the world from itself is a responsibility that not just anyone can do, so of course it's going to be a huge weight on me._ He sneaked some data on hidden criminals onto the internet behind everyone else's backs as he sipped the coffee that Matsuda had brought in. _But now that I have Ryuzaki, the New World won't be as far away as I originally thought. _He predicted that Aizawa would heave a sigh of exasperation at any moment upon finding out the death count caused by Kira the previous day. _But Ryuzaki can be annoyingly stubborn, so the only option for any of this to be successful is to fully convince him that what I'm doing is the right thing._

_We worked so well together back when we were trying to capture the Yotsuba Kira, so the both of us can work together again for an even grander cause._

--

There was something wrong.

Light hadn't visited L in a few days since he brought in those pastries, and as he stood in the doorway looking in, he could clearly detect something amiss.

When he stepped in further, Light saw that the wall closest to the bed was covered in scratch marks. The marks weren't incoherent scribbles, but complex math equations, scientific hypothesis on a wide variety of subjects, book verses, company names, measurements…all in different languages.

It was all along the bottom portion of the wall, as if L was crouching down and inching his way to the side as he carved them in.

Light followed the trail on the wall with his eyes, until they reached the cause of carvings on the floor. The young man quickly made his way over to the bent figure, kicking up the dust that had been dislodged from the wall once more into the air. L lay curled up in a ball on the ground with his bloody hands against the wall, as if he had fainted as he scratched in as much as he possibly could before he lost consciousness. Even as L had filed down his nails into stubs he had continued scratching into the wall with his fingertips, and as a result the last section of what he carved in was in his own blood.

"Idiot," Light whispered, as he effortlessly lifted the man off of the ground and to the bed. "What the hell were you thinking?"

He wrapped the thin man tightly in the blankets as he shivered violently. The only thing covering him before was a thick black sweater and plaid sweat pants, which, for him, wasn't nearly enough to keep warm.

Light hurriedly began to treat L's torn up fingers, fetching a bowl, a bottle of water and a first aid kit he kept under the small table. He propped the cocoon of blankets against himself and washed the wounds as gently as he could, strong arms encircling his ward.

He bandaged him up in silence with a grim expression on his face. Light had an idea of why L had done all of this, stemming from his last encounter with the former detective. It seemed L's keen mind was recovering much faster than his body could, and in his frustration, it was possible that he spent most of his waking time trying to recall all of his memories.

The walls were evidence that L had remembered a huge amount of information at once, and he tried to write them all down on the only surface presented to him. And the condition of his fingers proved his desperation on the matter.

Light paused to look at L's boney hands as he was drying them from the cleaning.

L had proved that he was an excellent fighter back when he didn't have his memories of the Death Note, and the baggy clothes he always wore did his physique no justice whatsoever. But now all of that was gone. Decayed into dust and now resurrected as nothing.

He held the extremely thin man in his arms, who was still shivering unconsciously. He felt that a single rough move would break him, and a strange ache in his chest answered that fleeting thought. Light positioned the blankets more securely around him, but as his arms encircled the other, he hesitated. No one was around that he had to put on a mask for, slick over his actions for, or share sweet nothings with. And slowly, the younger man gently wrapped his own arms around him and leaned in more to rest his forehead on L's fragile shoulder.

In his own mind, Light knew that this was really queer, and that he honestly shouldn't be hugging another man like this. But his body never moved, and maybe because he knew that many other people would get the wrong impression of this situation, that he stayed where he was. Light buried his face even deeper into the blankets that covered him.

It was like all of his worries were gradually melting away, because here at this moment, he didn't have to pretend to be something else. The dutiful son, the hardworking vigil, the honorable colleague, the diligent lover, the idol sibling…. All of it is so tedious. Bothersome.

But necessary.

And yet, when Light tried to lift himself away from the still cocoon of warm fabrics, he couldn't bring himself to. It smelt of the laundry detergent Light used to clean them, and of the shampoo that L used. He hadn't felt this relaxed since…. He couldn't even remember.

He inhaled the scent deeply, and hugged the other closer to himself.

--

Soichiro Yagami was not the kind of man that doesn't notice what's around him, which is one of the reasons that he's been successful as part of the police. He understood the basic psychology of human behavior, how the guilty react to certain things and how cautious they are around the first sign of the authorities. It wasn't terribly hard.

When he first heard that his son wanted to follow in his footsteps as a police investigator, Soichiro was overjoyed and began teaching him many things that he encounters in his line of work. Although he suspected that Light already knew most of the information that was shared, he still listened respectfully to his father.

His son had such a bright future, it made him swell with pride when he delved his thoughts on the subject. He was smart, handsome, charming, hard-working…everything a father wants their son to be like.

"Chief,"

Soichiro turned in his chair, "Yes Aizawa-san?"

He paused a little, something that the other man dismissed, "I know that Light has been kind of busy with Misa, but this time he hasn't come back and it's pretty late in the day. He's usually very meticulous about being on time."

The older man nodded, "Yes, I know. But the amount of effort he puts into this investigation more than makes up for that."

"I agree." He said, "So why don't we give him a couple days off so he can relax a bit? I've noticed that the kid's been really uptight lately." After a small moment, Aizawa grinned and chuckled a little, "It's kind of strange calling him a 'kid', since he's the one who's in charge of everything."

"That's my son." Soichiro said proudly.

--

"…Light-kun?"

The young man looked up in surprise, almost knocking over the portable stove with the chicken soup on it. _He remembers my name,_ "Yes?"

L blinked at him tiredly from under the blankets, peeking out of an opening as he lay on his stomach. His eyes were drooping like a child forced to wake up for school, and his pale face contrasted with the warm shadows, giving the appearance of a sleepy ghost. "Does that have sugar in it?"

Light looked back at the contents of the soup in the small pot he was stirring. It wasn't like Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup in a can, but strips of real chicken in a seasoned broth with scallions and pine nuts floating on the top layer of it. Probably not the best treat for a sugar addict like L, but the soup is very easy on the stomach, unlike the foods he witnessed him eat before. East Asian cuisine was the obvious choice for Light to feed his ward, being in Japan and knowing that most of the popular recipes were relatively simple but high in nutritional value.

And with all of the saturated fat and artificial flavors he was accustomed to eating, L must be missing his cakes.

Light transferred the soup into a bowl and grabbed a small plastic container of sugar cubes to put on a tray, with a small cookie already waiting on it as dessert. When L saw this, he perked up struggled into a sitting position, but when he put pressure on his thumbs he collapsed again with a huff.

"Whoa, slow down," Light reached out to help him, and the other flinched slightly. Barely noticeable, but it was there. "You're still hurt."

"Thank you, Light-kun." He said when he was an upright cocoon of blankets once more.

He passed the thin man the tray of food and sat down on the far end of the bed. L tasted the soup first, and after assessing the lack of sweetness, dumped all of the sugar cubes into the bowl. Light had to hold back the urge to smack him upside the head.

L ate in silence, with the occasional loud slurp and the spoon clinking on the side of the bowl as he poked at the pine nuts with it. He knew that he couldn't afford to be picky, as emaciated as he was, so the sugarcoated nuts and chicken went down willingly. The young man couldn't watch him eat without feeling a little nauseous, since the soup had turned more into a thick syrup with all of that sugar.

All the while, L stayed in a solemn state. His eyes downcast and thoughtful.

"Light-kun is being very generous today." He said quietly, licking the chocolate chips on the top of the cookie when the bowl had been cleaned out.

"You think so?"

He nodded, "Yes."

Light smiled, "Because I gave you a cookie?"

"That too." He admitted, "But before you seemed very adamant on limiting my sugar intake, though I'm grateful that today was different." He began nibbling on the cookie, "You also took the extra time to help me with my hands."

Light sensed an underlying intonation of something else behind those words, "Well, they were all bloody. It's normal for a person to help another with these things."

"Yes, but Light-kun knew that I probably wouldn't like my fingers to be bound together like wearing mittens, so you bandaged them separately so that I can hold things."

Always picking out the barest of things. "I didn't think that would be a big deal." He answered.

"Well, given that I prefer to do things a certain way, and you put that into consideration when tending to my hands, I think it is very generous." He shifted so that he was facing the other and pushed away the tray. "Why are you being very generous, Light-kun?"

There. Everything was right there in his eyes. The suspicion, the aloof disdain, the frustration. The certainty. "Why not, Ryuzaki? Maybe I'm in a generous mood."

His lips stretched into a deep frown and his eyes darkened. "Please do not call me by that name, Yagami-kun."

Just as those words left his mouth, the air got heavier and Light knew that it was no use playing around. He didn't know how much L remembered exactly, but it's obviously enough to cause a bitter reaction to the past. "Of course. That was my mistake."

L tugged the blankets more tightly around himself as a chill wind blew at the small curtained window, "I'm not quite sure how all of this happened, Yagami-kun. But I must say, I can't help but feel…" he paused, searching for the right word, "…indignant."

Light closed his eyes for a brief moment. A trace of shame laced his thoughts, but if anything, it strengthened his resolve for what he planned. "You've regained all of your memories?"

"Well I can't know if I've regained everything, because I would have to be aware that it's missing in the first place." The man reasoned, "But I recall enough to understand maybe half of the reason you are keeping me here like this-"

"L." the younger man interjected, moving closer and gazing earnestly at the other, "What was the first thing you remember?"

It annoyed him that he cut him off like that, but the question asked hushed a sharp barb that almost instinctively left the man's mouth. The fact that he had not asked what the _last_ thing he remembered was, but the _first_, told L that the question was indicating the little time he retained before he found himself in this room. L understood this, but it didn't lift his mood in the slightest. "What good would my telling you of that be, Yagami-kun?"

"You died, L." Light said, "And yet here you are again, recovering from being dead. How many people can manage that? If you were in my place, wouldn't you want to know about that kind of experience?"

"So I _am_ an experiment…?" he mumbled to himself, then said more loudly, "You want to know what I remember of the time I was dead." L had a haunted look that graced his features, "Yes…that was quite an experience."

Light stayed silent, waiting patiently for him to continue. He had a morbid interest of what death was like to those who fell by the Death Note, and unconsciously leaned in closer to the other to hear his soft voice more clearly.

L noticed this and said coolly, "It seems like I don't really have a choice on the matter of discussion, do I, Yagami-kun?

"But you're right. I was dead, but how I came back is as mysterious as the concept of a supernatural killing book. And it's not an experience I would wish upon others." He closed his eyes, and for a quick moment Light thought he had fallen asleep like that, until he opened them again with a glazed appearance as he stared at the wall behind him.

"The only thing I can remember before it all began…were your eyes. The only reason I even remember that is because that's all I saw before it turned to Nothing…. I was denied the warm blackness and forced into the unfeeling white where screams were silenced as soon as they started."

(At this point, Light assumed that the "unfeeling white" was what Ryuk referred to as Mu, given that L spoke of it in negative context.)

"Time was of no importance; it could have been a thousand years going by in an instant, or a couple of minutes for that matter, and I would not have the slightest idea. There was no body, no thought, and 'soul' is not an accurate term, but my entity was simply _there_. No purpose, no identity, all of it was Nothing.

"However, compared to what the 'resurrection' was like, the whiteness is preferable." L gave off a shiver, "In the white, I at least could not feel anything, but as vengeful as it was, the grating and frostbitten burns that came next was torture. I thought that finally being able to feel would be something that I welcome, but this was very different."

"L-"

He made a swift hissing sound, a rapid intake of breath, to interrupt. "Don't say my name. I regret that I lost, as close as I was to the conclusion, but must you be so cruel? To kill me, only to bring me back right after? Do you, Light Yagami, have any idea how humiliating this is? I can't even do the simplest tasks without spraining a tendon, and two days ago, I couldn't stay awake for just a couple of hours!"

As he said all of this, L's voice had increased in volume and the hoarseness was heard more clearly, until the last word had cracked as he choked on the air. L held his bandaged hands against his throat to calm himself, his eyes squeezed shut to block out Light's pitying stare. When L took his hands away from his neck, his face looked gaunt with fatigue, and didn't say anymore.

To say that Light had been tricked by Ryuk into this situation wasn't entirely true. Although he wasn't sure what the eraser would do, he knew that it had something to do with the former detective, and erased his name anyway. But seeing him like this, the only person strong enough to go head to head against Kira, wasn't as enjoyable as he imagined.

For the first time since the man sitting beside him had died, Light wasn't sure what to say. He knew how to melt a woman's heart, whisper empty promises into their ears that they unconditionally believed in, maneuver his way out of sticky arguments with ease…which was all useless with L. But the helpless expression on his face made Light want to grab and shake him until the man kicked him.

Why did he look so broken? L was supposed to be his perfect rival, an equal. Yet here he is, wrapped in an opened cage of blankets, surrendering to him! Light hated how submissive his posture was, with dull eyes downcast and almost kneeling, because that's not how it's supposed to be!

"The Great Detective L," Light said mockingly, "is feeling sorry for himself?"

"…" He didn't answer.

Light moved so that his face right in front of his, "It's true, L. I was the one who brought you back. Are you angry? Sad?"

Again the young man waited a moment for a response he knew wasn't coming, and watched him closely for any kind of reaction.

"How pathetic. You're just a broken toy now, aren't you? L." Light slipped his hand into the blankets that covered his glossy black hair, like a hood, and stroked his pasty white cheek gently. "I thought that you would put up more of a fight than this. What happened?"

L 's lips twitched away when Light's thumb had rubbed at the corner of his mouth, "Is it because you can't threaten me anymore? Put me in confinement, handcuffs?

"What happened to the Great Unstoppable L? Is he ashamed to come out because he can't keep a leash on his suspects anymore? Or is it because he wanted to stay asleep?" Light really did want him to answer this time, but L kept silent.

With a swipe of his hand, Light brushed off the blankets covering his face and ran his fingers through that short black hair until they came to rest on the back of his head. "Now you're just being difficult. But that's okay, because you know what?" he bent in closer, so that the side of his face was against L's to whisper in his ear, even thought there was no one around to listen, "You're stuck in here until I say that you can leave."

L draped his arms around the other's neck, surprising him while keeping the both of them in close proximity, and mimicked Light's actions with his own, "If that's the case Light-kun," he said quietly, "then I wish you the best of luck with that."

* * *

A/N: whew! That whole part with Mu and whatnot was really hard for me to write, and it still didn't come out how I wanted it to… maybe I'll change it later, when I find some new inspiration for something like that.

Anyway, I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter, because when I really thought about it, the drama that I intended to throw in here before didn't quite fit, and it probably would've thrown off the tense atmosphere that actually does serve a purpose.

And look! A tiny bit of yaoi! Even though all chances of a fast relationship has been torn apart and tossed to all corners of the world. Hm.

Oh! And since Misa has been mostly absent lately, she gets a special appearance in the next addition! Not a happy one, mind you, because this is not a happy fic.

Hate it? Love it? Wanna cry bloody murder and rip my house to shreds? Please, I'd like to know. So that I can work harder to make this fic better, feel happy, and determine whether or not I should go into hiding with katana in hand. :)

Thank you for reading! And please review!


	5. Madeline's Lament

rating: M

disclaimer: I r not owning Death Note. I make no profit, unfortunatly.

Note: a huge thanks to **Zedin**, **Ayakin**, **jjwitdaheydiddydiddy**, **simply anonymous**, **Sioen** and **fantasies4eva** for hearing my pleas for attention! T_T

Madeline's Lament

Ryuk found that the detective was now an endless trove of entertainment, mostly when Light wasn't there to witness it. He couldn't help it, especially during those long hours of waiting by his human's side with nothing else to do. Of course, Light got nervous when the shinigami drifted away through the wall whenever he wanted.

But what did he care? He sat cross-legged on the bed as L hung haphazardly from the boards that sealed the only window inside the room and the connecting bathroom.

After L had challenged Light, the boy merely smirked and left. When he woke up the next day L found that the window had been nailed shut. And so, L began wrenching the nails out with a spoon. When the spoon finally snapped from the strain, he used the handle as a replacement for a screwdriver in order to unscrew the doorknob from the door.

There was a ten percent chance that any of this would work, but L was tired of sitting around and feeling sorry for himself. He worked until he collapsed, destroying all of the spoons and any other long utensil Light _allowed_ in the room. That excluded knives and forks.

His hands never got the chance to heal during all of this, and it got to the point where Light strapped the man down on the bed to keep him from moving and boarded up the small window and changed the abused doorknob. After that, he simply smeared an anti-bacterial cream all over his torn fingers and threw a pillow at L's face when he voiced his displeasure when he began bandaging him up again.

The young man considered leaving him like that until L complained loudly that he had to go pee, and that if he didn't let him go to the toilet then Light would have to clean up after him and if he didn't bother cleaning up after him then he threatened to wrap the soiled blankets around Light's head in an attempt to strangle him the first chance he got.

So Light left the room that night with an unbound L whistling obnoxiously in the bathroom.

Leading to the present predicament of a still extremely thin man hanging from the boards on the window. Ryuk laughed so hard that he fell off the bed as L animatedly tried to pry the boards off for an hour and watched closely as he shoved plastic spoons under the nails, being that his caretaker had replaced his collection of spoons with a softer material.

He soon gave up after he had harassed all of the nails in the room and curled up under his blankets, shivering with fatigue and cold. "Damn Yagami…." He said to himself.

L stayed quiet for a few more moments, and Ryuk inched closer to the bed and grinned when he began wriggling around in a frustrated fit, "Insolent bastard!" he hissed, "Two-faced closet pervert! I'll kick that twisted smile of his until it spins!"

He rolled around on his back and his fists and feet flew into the air in a childish tantrum, "I'll never give in!"

_Well, he's more energetic now._ Ryuk chuckled to himself.

"I see that you're doing well."

The shinigami turned to find Light Yagami leaning against the doorway, eyes glancing at Ryuk and resting on L, who had rolled onto his stomach and glowered at Light's shoes.

"You came at a bad time, Yagami-kun."

"Has your energy been spent?"

"Not so much that I will abide to you tying me down again."

Light's smile widened and made his way to the food table, "Well as long as you don't start throwing spoon bits at me like before, that won't be an issue." He grabbed a water bottle and shoved it inside L's cocoon, where his hands would be, as he made himself comfortable on the edge of the bed. "I brought some cake, courtesy of Misa."

L didn't answer and wrapped his body in blankets as he sat up, his back toward the other.

"It wasn't made specifically for you, of course." He continued, "But it's way too sweet for me and I knew that you'd love it, even if you don't start eating until I leave." Feeling more playful, Light crawled toward him and draped his arms around the man's shoulders, "It has _strawberries_." He taunted.

"Yagami-kun," L said quietly, "I would like to inform you that although strawberry shortcake is a favorite of mine, I am also quite picky on how the baking process is performed. I dislike the taste of excess _salt _and _vanilla_ _extract_."

"But that makes up the to-_die_-_for_ strawberry cream in the center."

"The overuse of _lard_ and _artificial_ ingredients can upset the stomach also. Urging it to puke."

"But the sweet cake that it _becomes_ is delicious all the same."

"And yet you don't like it." L scoffed.

"That's not necessarily true." Light closed his eyes and let his fingers gently glide over L's choppy black hair, careful enough not to be noticed, "I do have a soft spot for strawberries."

To anyone else (like Ryuk) that little charade would have just been two individuals bickering about food, but to them, they were arguing about the moral strife surrounding the title that is Kira. Light countering L's disdain for his method of action, such as _killing_ people, with the end result of a sinless world, depicted as the finished cake. Even if he was extracting the vanilla of hope from some of the innocent families of the judged and acting artificial to the public.

"And there can only be one strawberry on the center of the cake?" L said softly.

"There can be two."

L smirked, "Well in this case, it seems to be a strawberry and a half."

Light's eyes snapped open as he realized that L didn't get his little hint at what he truly wanted of the both of them, as rulers of Utopia, or did he just say that Light was half a berry?

L turned his head a little with a hairless eyebrow raised at the young man's silence, "Hm? I didn't think that Yagami-kun would disapprove of me ridiculing his 'girlfriend'." He turned his head back around, eyes drooping, "Maybe there have been a lot more changes then I previously thought."

Or L completely missed what Light was saying. _Oh well,_ he thought, _it isn't the right time to tell him anyway._

"Yagami-kun's weight on my shoulders is also causing a small issue on my personal space."

"L is being a pansy."

"L likes to breathe." He said back, "More so when he knows what it's like not to."

Light slid his arms down to the others blanket covered torso, and embraced the cotton cocoon instead. "How about this?" he said quietly.

"This proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Yagami-kun is a closet pervert." L sighed. His precious energy was used up trying to annoy the other, such making as much a fuss as he could about trying to get out, throwing an actual tantrum and reeling in his impulse to throw him off of his bed. Now he was too exhausted to feel anything toward this person who kept hugging him. "Why are you hugging me?"

"I want to see you eat your cake."

"Have you drugged it?"

"Of course." Light retorted, "Cake is never complete without date rape drugs injected into it."

"…That is not funny, considering your clingy behavior today Yagami-kun."

Light sighed. "Are you going to eat it or not?"

L stifled a yawn with the blankets and let his eyes rest a little. "Perhaps later, I am very tired."

--

The shinigami drifted through the wall and into the kitchen where Misa was preparing dinner for the couple. Donned in a cute pink apron with large ruffles on the hems, the buoyant young woman hummed to herself as she occupied the stove area.

He looked over her shoulder to peek into the pan, and turned his head to the side. _These humans make such a big fuss about food. If they just eat apples then they wouldn't argue about it so much. _He didn't understand why Light and L were so into their conversation, so he soon got bored and left hoping Misa would prove better entertainment.

The contents of the pan that the young woman was fretting over was fried rice that had a wild bouquet of flowers mixed in. The 'flowers' were shaped carrot slices, bloated mini hotdogs and peas stuck together in groups of four. Again, why these humans put so much effort in making food was beyond the shinigami.

"Oh, hi Ryuk!" she squeaked when she noticed him behind her, "Is Light with you?"

"Nah." He scratched his head, and figured that he should add more to that answer, "He's busy."

"Oh." She turned back to her cooking, with a forlorn expression, "Well I'm not finished yet anyway, so that's okay."

Ryuk shrugged, not really caring for where this was going. He thought about giving her hints about Light's third life (the first being Kira, second is successful police dude) of resurrecting his enemy and keeping him as a pet. But then the fun might not last as long…but he was bored _now_…so maybe…? _Eh, let's see how this'll go. _"Haven't you wondered where he goes all the time?"

She paused. _Of course I have! _She started poking at the contents in the pan again, acting as cool as she could, "Do you want to tell me?"

"Nah." The apple basket caught his eye and he walked over to it, "But if you look, you'll find something."

She whirled around to his lanky back with a cute scowl wrinkling her brow, "Why can't you just tell me? Why are you so vague with the things that I really want to know about?"

_Because it's fun watching you humans squirm._ "Why not?" he crunched into his apple and pointed behind her. "You might wanna look at that."

"Don't change the subject, you jerk-" she caught a whiff of something burning and shrieked when she remembered the pot on the other stove coil, "The curry!"

_It's so easy to distract her._

He drifted into the living room and turned on the TV, but the soap operas that he usually watched weren't on. So he floated along the house in a bored stupor. "He's here."

--

Light ate his dinner in silence as Misa chattered away about the drama that was going on at the photo shoot between her and a new girl. "She's not even that pretty, and she thinks she can boss me around the set! Not only is she rude but-"

He glanced at the fried rice and suppressed the urge to inquire the reason why there were flowers on his plate. The simple answer to that was that it was Misa who cooked it. _Flowers? Oh yeah, didn't I get a pack of flower seeds awhile back? What happened to them? I can't remember…._

"Light?"

"Yes?"

She looked at him imploringly, "Is everything okay? You've been acting a little…differently."

"Am I?"

"Yeah. You know you can tell me anything, don't you? We're in this together."

He looked up at her and smiled warmly, "Of course, Misa. I know that better than anyone."

Seeing him smile at _her_ like that made her blush and giggle, "Well…how do you like your dinner, Light? I'm still learning, but I've come a long way since we first moved in together when I didn't know a thing about cooking…."

Several white lies and a bottle of wine later, the pair of them ended up in the bedroom heavily engrossed in a make out session.

Light tried to get more into it, he really did, but it just wasn't working for him. The exact opposite could be said about Misa, who was getting more and more aroused by the second. She ran her hands up and down his back and shoulders, made all the small noises that _should_ be making him want her, but he didn't.

"Light?" she asked breathlessly, "Here, come on…."

"Shhh…" he laid his index finger on her swelled lips, "Don't talk."

He closed his eyes and massaged her breasts, but when the clothes came off, his hands failed to stray there for the rest of the night. But he was undoubtedly more active in their lovemaking.

It was different, the way they did it. But Misa couldn't figure out why. He touched her the way she always longed him to, everything was perfect…even though he didn't look her in the eye and gently kept her as quiet as she was able while she roiled in pleasure.

When she gasped and cried his name, tears of happiness leaked out of her eyes as he held her head into his shoulder and whispered soothingly, "Hushhh…everything's ok. I'll…I'll take care of you."

--

The need to help her love drove her to new heights. Sometimes she would wonder if Light was only pretending that he loved her, and he would just say things just so that she'd leave him be. But since last night's activities, she knew that that was all just paranoia on her part.

When he left in the morning, Misa bribed Ryuk with more apples to tell her more about what's been stressing Light out lately.

"Well…" he said, bug eyes locked onto the basket filled with Red Delicious, "that graveyard down the way seems more active."

So to the graveyard she went, and she immediately knew which he was talking about for no particular reason. But as the iron gates of the cemetery came into view, the sight of a small black cat also came out to greet her. She stopped in front of it and was about to exclaim how cute it was, but halted before the words left her lips.

It had large green eyes that gazed up at her, and if she were to put a label on its expression, she would've had to say hostile. The fur wasn't on end, nor was it in that agitated stance that cats adopt when angry, but it was definitely hostile. Misa was usually very good with animals, but this one looked ready to attack her.

"Amane-san?"

She turned to find a man standing at the sidewalk. "Huh? Aizawa-san?"

He walked over to her, "What are you doing here?"

"I was just...visiting someone. What about _you_?"

"Me?" he rubbed the back of his neck and laughed a little, embarrassed, "There's a flower shop back there, and I was picking some up for my wife and daughters…but I have no idea what to get them." He sighed, "The last time I 'threw a bunch of plants at her' she said that I gave it absolutely no thought at all. How was I supposed to know that different flowers mean different things?"

She smiled pityingly at him. "Would you like some help from Misa?"

"Huh? No, no, I couldn't do that. You're here to visit someone, right?" he nodded towards the cemetery, "Thanks for the offer, though."

"Um, I don't think so." She said as he was about to wave goodbye, "Misa doesn't actually know _who_ it is she's visiting, to tell you the truth. I know it sounds silly, but that's beside the point!" The thought of a man presenting flowers to a woman was so romantic, and she couldn't just stand by as this ignorant man chose out the _wrong_ flowers. She was on a roll today. "Let's go, it's Misa to the rescue!"

"Wha-? I-"

"We're on our waaaay!"

* * *

A/N: okay, lame finish, but that's what I come up with early in the morning. (currently…10:15am) I feel bad for putting this on hold for more than a month, and tried to finish it last week. Obviously that didn't work out, but it's here now.

Misa does serve a purpose with her ditzy-ness, I swear. She's gettn' there…

Shall I add a few things? Am I adding too much? Should I change my sentences a little? Please let me know! Or simply a few kind words to coax my ego into moving along faster is enough :)

Thank you for reading, and please review!


	6. Haunted Memories

Disclaimer: Death Note isn't mine.

A/N: ok, I know it's been a while since I've put up a new chapter, and it's not that long, so I apologize. I'm a terrible person I know, but I still hope everyone enjoys it! It's difficult staying in character with these guys because their holier-than-thou attitudes and "Ahg, pity meeee!"

But anyway.

ThAnK yOu: **Spottedstar106**, **Zedin**,** Ayakin**,** jjwitdaheydiddydiddy **(I'm always afraid of spelling this wrong),** fantasies4eva**,** jaded-alchemist** and **MacyL-Kun**! You guys really help me out with this. Truly.

Now, without further ado, enjoy.

Haunted Memories

A scratching noise woke L up from his deep sleep. It had gone on for a long time, and he was just beginning to register the oddity of it when he sat up, blinking away the night.

Here he was, locked away in this room, with only his captor as company, and his fickle little guest decides to show up now, after weeks of nothing. From the corner of the room, the black cat struggled with one of the boards that was stubbornly held in place by a single nail, but as L watched, she got it loose and slinked through the tiny opening with ease. Large green eyes locked with his own and she scrunched up her face in a greeting, "Meow,"

"Hello," he said back as she jumped lightly onto his bed, "I suppose that miniscule tunnel you found won't be able to stretch out a few more feet for me?"

She made herself comfortable on his lap, and he absentmindedly began smoothing out her sleek fur. "If you are hungry, then help yourself to whatever you can on that table. I'm afraid I don't have anything you might like."

He knew that she couldn't understand what he was saying, but talking to anyone other than Light Yagami without him knowing, made him feel a wee bit better. It was a petty kind of rebellion, if it could be called that, but he really didn't want to be a good little pet for him to keep.

The ache in his muscles brought him a kind of satisfaction that he would never feel had it been caused by his unexpected regeneration. This dull pain was proof that he was indeed alive and _recovering_ on his _own_ terms, not solely on time and sustenance.

For the past few days, L had been doing sit ups and jogging around the room. He had to sacrifice some of his precious hours for more sleep after these exercises, but it was well worth it. He gazed tiredly at the opposite wall as his sore muscles made his legs felt ridiculously heavy. _It is slow progress, but I refuse to rot in here._

--

Light wasn't the kind of guy to sit back and relax, watching the world go by in its slow journey to destruction. Oh no. He either had to hurry it along, or do what he could to stop it in its tracks. Anything else would be a waste of time, and therefore, not good enough for him. If it had been anything else, anything at all, that dropped from the sky that fateful school day nothing would be as it was. This was an obvious understanding, and he was happier knowing that whoever was smiling down on him gave him a _killing_ notebook along with all of the resources he received with it, such as a willing pair of eyes and ever trusting colleagues.

It could've been a notebook that turned people into donkeys and he'd just increase the number of asses, but the worst these asses could do would be to scream in your ear. He often thought about this, and decided that it was better the way things were. But L thought differently.

"I believe I prefer the donkeys."

Light looked at him. "I believe I prefer shinigamis."

L ignored him, "The world would be a smellier place, but that's what air fresheners are for. To extend that thought, the technology for those appliances would advance substantially for the betterment of our noses. Besides donkeys are sterile, so they cannot multiply." He ate a blueberry from the little bowl of fruit in his lap, "Also, being threatened to be turned into a donkey if one was not to behave is a very frightening punishment, let alone a humbling experience."

"That's not the point! What I'm doing is to make all the criminals that have nothing better to do but make everyone else miserable disappear! Anyway, it _is _a punishment for them, because they're too caught up in their own world to realize how much they're hurting the people around them. Death is a very humbling experience, and more useful because they can't wail and act even more obnoxious when they realize being turned into a donkey is all the punishment is!"

"Oh! Maybe they can form donkey gangs." He said around a melon slice in his mouth, appearing quite serious as he still pretended not to hear him, "It would be highly amusing; they can have bandanas and paint their hind quarters in a show of status for their hierarchy."

The younger man sighed. _How the hell did their conversation take this turn?_

"And your name, instead of 'Kira', would then be 'Jackass'."

"Is that so?"

"Hm."

It was conversations like these that took place inside the small prison, and the only reason why Light was able to keep his wits about him as he lived with stupid and worked with people that might as well give up. Thankfully L hasn't asked about anything to do with the task force yet, which was strange, but Light wasn't complaining. "Do you feel accomplished when you find a way to insult me? Even if it's in the smallest of ways?"

"Yes." He said immediately. "It's the only thing I can really do right now, so why not?"

Light rolled his eyes and stood in front of the crouching man, "Oh, I don't know." he said innocently, "Do you want to make your only source of food upset? Because I can change your diet back to rice porridge and soup."

L peered up at him imploringly, searching his face if this man would really do that to him. Not a minute later he began to eat his fruit faster, in case he was going to take his bowl away from him.

Light looked on as L continued to shovel slices of fruit into his mouth, a soft expression on his face, which then creased into worry. "Hey," he said gruffly, "slow down, you're going to choke."

As usual, L ignored him and lifted the bowl higher so that the food slid into his awaiting mouth.

"L!" the young man said sharply, and reached out to wrestle it out if his hands. "Stop acting like an idiot!"

The man made a strange gurgle of disapprovement and hopped to the side to evade him, the nearly empty bowl held high in the air for safety. His cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk as he tried to swallow it all in one gulp, eyes squinted in his efforts. A single glance at his face and Light was struck dumb. _What in the… _

He straightened up and stared down at the other, "L, what the hell are you doing?"

L pounded his chest and managed to swallow most of the fruit. He brought his precious bowl down and held it to his chest as he finished with the rest in his mouth.

Light looked away with a grin on his face. He didn't act this ridicules back when he was in the investigation team, not even when they were chained together. L would let his goofy side show every so often when Light had to wrestle him out of the bathroom everyday, intent on having privacy in that _one _room when the handcuffs were on, but not like this.

"Why are you laughing?"

Light covered his lips with his hand in habit as his snickers shamelessly streamed through the air. "Heh heh heh heh-"

"Yagami-kun."

Light bent forward, clutching his stomach, "Hahahahahaha!"

L slowly stood up, slipped on his warm slippers to protect his feet from the cold floor and leaned over his hysterical guest with a thoughtful gleam in his eye. He poked him.

Light gripped L's shoulder to keep himself upright , "Your- your face, Ryuzaki!"

"Face?"

Light continued laughing, unable to speak. He hasn't laughed like this in _ages_. The occasional weightless chuckle at a joke, or just to make someone feel better after an awkward silence, but definitely not like this. It felt good. Really good.

They stayed like that for a couple minutes with L standing patiently as the laughter finally began to die down, and placed his hands on both Light's shoulders to gently push him upright. The young man, still trying to recover, didn't give any notice to the movement.

L peered up at the face of the man he despised, alight with mirth, and straightened his back to push his face mere centimeters away from the others nose. Light halted his chuckles immediately to look at him quizzically, and in turn L said frankly, "I am not Ryuzaki."

Before Light could react to this abrupt change, L dragged his tongue across the younger man's lower lip very steadily and slipped it between chapped lips when Light let out the small breath he held in. L didn't know the first thing about kissing, but if anything, that contributed to his exploring tongue.

Light stood, shocked beyond words and strangely aroused by this new turn of events. He couldn't even think clearly, and his body took over what his mind had cautiously held in check for so long.

He wrapped his arms around the thinner man and pulled him to himself tightly as he joined in on the tangle, one hand straying upward to brush through L's choppy hair, which was now almost covering his forehead. Light loved it. They stood there, deeply engrossed and now blushing in the heat of the moment. Light's frenzied thoughts were drowned out by his fiercely pumping heart and L fought for dominance over the kiss with the man who naturally knew how to be in control.

Gasping and wet sounds echoed around the small room, and eventually L tried to break it by turning his head around to breathe, but Light's hand pulled him back. He tried to push him away for a second time, but Light was still so much stronger. He made a sound of discontent and struggled against him, but Light was too busy to take notice.

"Mmph-ahhmmph!" But that just made Light hold him tighter.

"Ahhh-" the young man loosened his death grip and held a hand to his bleeding lip. He was still slight of breath and looked at L accusingly. "You bit me."

"And you-" L gasped, "are suffocating me."

"Sorry." Light did look sorry, and he stared at the other, his puzzled expression returning. "What are you trying to do?"

He didn't answer immediately, so instead L rested his head in the crook of Light's neck, and the young man nuzzled his nose into his hair. A feeling of content was flooding through Light's body, and he wanted to stay like this forever.

"I suppose," L lifted his head a bit and whispered softly, "Rem wasn't here to see that?"

Light stood with L held snugly in his arms for a moment longer, simply holding him, and then shoved him toward the bed roughly.

L hit the side of it heavily and grunted on impact. He kept himself from sliding onto the floor when he grabbed a handful of the bed sheets as he glanced toward the retreating figure of Light's back, who was facing the door, hand on the knob. It creaked open, and he said curtly over his shoulder, "No." and shut the door with a snap.

--

Of course, L hated him.

Why wouldn't he?

He had taken away everything from him, even his standard wardrobe of a white shirt and jeans for crying out loud. It's completely understandable. He's the only person he has any sort of contact with, so he can't even vent his frustration out on anything else. He never realized it before, but all those times when L was acting outrageously stupid and/or doing things that made absolutely no sense, were the times when L was warning Light to back off. But he didn't catch on soon enough, and that's when he got burned.

He was an idiot for getting as excited as he did, and because of that, he let L have the upper hand. How could he possibly think that kiss was anything other than one of spite?

It hurt. God damn, it hurt. Light knew, he _knew_ that he felt more than a teacher-pupil affection for him, but it didn't come forward fully enough until he slipped out of that old building and was walking back home.

He lay on the couch, trying to stay as far away from the sleeping Misa in the bedroom as he could manage. His finger was tracing his own lips as he remembered the kiss. L tasted like the fruit he was eating. Honeydew melons, cherries, blueberries, pineapples…. And he felt warm too.

"Ke ke ke ke…"

Light opened his eyes at the cutting disturbance, and glared at the shinigami when he came into view. The skeletal thing was looking over at him from behind the couch. "Not now."

"Hn?" he grinned, "I haven't even said anything yet!"

"I don't care. Whatever it is, save it for later."

Ryuk stayed silent for a moment, much to Light's relief, but not because he told him too. The shinigami noticed something in his face that he recognized.

"Keh heh heh heh…." Oh, this is just hilarious. The irony's too much! "Kya ha ha ha ha ha!" he cackled.

Irritated, Light's eyes flew open once again and he lifted himself off the couch to be level with the shinigami. "What? What do you want?"

"Light, you look just like her!"

"What?" he stared at him, completely lost.

"Your girlfriend!" Ryuk elaborated, "Your expression just now, her expression before you got back, they're the same!"

He was speechless for the third time that day. How... "What are you talking about, Ryuk?"

The shinigami pointed at the bedroom door, "She likes you a lot, Light. But even I can tell you don't like her back. She knows it too, but won't admit it to herself and keeps on liking you. It shows on her face when she's by herself." He turned his finger toward him, "And that's the exact face _you_ were making just then, for who?" his grin widened, "For that detective, right?"

Light stood his ground as the shinigami proclaimed his discovery with a blank expression. Anything to do with human misery was funny to Ryuk, but then again, it's funny to other humans as well. But this was a little different, because he is the God of the New World. And everything Ryuk said was probably true. Light…has strong feelings for L. And L does too, but of a different kind. And it's painful, but he is God. A God's duty is for the people of the world to be happy, so anything to do with his own selfish desires will have to wait. Until his goal is achieved.

"Yeah." He finally said, "You're right, Ryuk."

The shinigami felt a change in his tone, and cocked his head to the side. "Hm…?"

"But it doesn't matter anymore." Light continued, and his voice sounded like it was computerized, "There are more important things to take care of."

"Like what?" he inquired, his eyes following the young man out of the living room.

Light turned back to face him, a small smile on his marble façade, "What do you mean 'like what?'?" he chuckled, "Things like the perfect world, helping the innocent and allowing good people to live in peace, as they aren't able to still today. I have to save them."

He stood in front of the door to his study a little longer, and lifted his head and gave him another chiseled smile, "Thanks, Ryuk."

The shinigami cocked his head to the other side in confusion. "Hn?"

"For making me realize that I was being intolerably self-centered." He replied, "I have to put everything else aside until then."

It's almost like he was trying to convince himself that he's giving up his most prized possession for the salvation of the earth.

When the bipolar man finally left, Ryuk scratched at his hairline. "Huh?"

* * *

A/N: yep. What you've been waiting for, I presume? A yaoi scene? Mm hm. Up there. No butt smex, though.

A couple of you complained about the LightxMisa scene in the previous chapter, and I apologize. But hey, it's sex. Awkward sex, but nonetheless.

I have a basic outline of everything to come in this fic, and admittedly, this chapter is a kind-of-but-not-quite filler. The next chapter is the catalyst for the avalanche that will be the drama, so as a result, it's going to take me a little while. I'm slow. I also live apart from my precious laptop from time to time, but I'll most definitely try to get it finished in at least a month.

So how was it? Shall I add more detail to the kissing scenes of yaoi? Constructive criticism is gold among my treasure of reviews, but I still do love helpful words of encouragement :D

Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think!

-Zak


	7. Annabel Lee

Disclaimer: I don't really like potato chips anymore. Do you like potato chips? That's good. I don't own Death Note.

A/N: yaaay! I wasn't separated from my electronic buddy all week so I was able to get this chapter finished. Isn't you proud of me? No? That's ok.

Whew, I feel like a pervert for all the things I've been posting this week, but that's ok too, I suppose.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO: **bookenworum, jjwitdaheydiddydiddy, simply anonymous, MacyL-Kun, Ayaken **!! You guys make me so happy ;_;

**Warning**: explicit content, no butt humping as of yet, though. Nonetheless if you can't handle the word "penis" without giggling like a madwoman/madman, I suggest you try to contain yourself for the last half of this chapter.

Now, please do enjoy the latest update:

* * *

Annabel Lee

"Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"Huh? Of course I have, silly!" Misa giggled, tapping her photographers shoulder playfully, "How do you expect me to keep up my figure if I don't?"

He shook his head and clicked his tongue, "I was going to ask you the same thing," he held up one of the pictures from the shoot earlier that day closer to his face, "because I can see some dark circles around your eyes in here, they're really faint, but it's definitely there." Her face fell and looked at the photo closely when he handed them to her to examine.

"It can be edited out," he continued, "but I really want to stay away from that if I can. So take care of yourself, Misa."

She bobbed her head with slouched shoulders in a small bow of courtesy, "I will, thank you Hashi-san!"

As he walked off with the photos tucked away in a folder, Misa sighed to herself. Lately she's been depressed, that she couldn't deny.

At dinner she always rambled on about what she did during the day and Light would listen to her, it's kind of a ritual every night. When she told him that she had taken a walk to the cemetery a couple days ago, she replaced the true reason with the illusion that her parents' anniversary was that day. He had listened to her story as patiently as ever, just like the gentleman he is. She told him about the beautiful scenery, how she met up with Aizawa and helped him choose out a bouquet for his wife. And he was completely fine.

But when she went to bed early that night because of the morning photo shoot she had the next day, she noticed that his entire body posture changed when she peeked out of the bedroom to say good-night one last time. He was standing in front of the full length mirror hung on the wall in the hallway, his shoulders were squared up and his hands fisted in his pockets. But his face…it was scary, to say the least.

Like he was angry enough for murder.

Not a moment after this new side of him was revealed to her, Ryuk drifted through the wall casually in the direction of the TV, like he always did at that time because of his favorite soap opera.

"It doesn't take much to make you talk." Light had said quietly.

Ryuk turned around, "Hn?"

He slowly walked to where the shinigami was, "How many apples did she offer you? Two? Three?"

Misa shifted nervously behind the door, trying to keep out of sight. She didn't know what brought this on, and the atmosphere was getting more and more dangerous with every word spoken. _Did I say something to upset him?_

"Actually, she gave me one." Misa wished he hadn't said anything. "It was a real juicy one, too."

Light chuckled, "Was it?"

By then Ryuk finally felt it too, Misa realized, he just didn't care. "Yeah."

"I'd give some juicy apples to shut you up, but that wouldn't work if you were offered even more, would it?"

"Nah. I like them too much-"

"Why don't you go somewhere else right now?" he cut in abruptly.

Ryuk straightened up his back, his eyes wide. "Huh? You mean leave?" he asked stupidly.

"Yes."

The rest of the conversation was all a blur. There were angry whispers and almost yelling, and the whole time it looked like Light wanted nothing more than to kill him. Ryuk flew off a couple minutes later, more to run away from the man's spiked tongue, if anything. After the shinigami was out of the picture for the night, and Misa was supposedly asleep, Light went back to his thoughtful brooding. She had never seen him like this before…and she couldn't help but wonder why he was like that in the first place. There wasn't anything to indicate such behavior at dinner….

_It must be something related to the Kira case…that's the only thing that gets him worked up about anything. _Just as Misa was about to tentatively step out to ask him what was wrong, Light let out a vicious snarl, tore the mirror from the wall and threw it to the floor. The deafening smash jolted her backward into the room, and as she watched, he stood above the wreckage with a savage smile on his face.

The crash of the mirror still rung in the air, like a wail of shock at the suddenness through her ears. What was going on? Why is he so angry? Misa never saw him act out like this, or even similar to what she saw….

She crawled back onto bed and feigned sleep in time when Light turned to check to see if the noise had woken her a little later. But her eyes were wide open as he quietly closed the door, and she listened to the clinking of the mirror pieces as he cleaned it all up. _He doesn't want to tell me anything,_ she thought to herself.

_So I'll have to take matters onto my hands to lift some of the weight from his shoulders._ The cemetery was her best bet, and that's the direction she was headed after the photo shoot.

--

She donned a beautiful black veil and a simple black dress, with a single cross that hung on a thick chain. It was a very modest outfit and Misa wanted onlookers to know that she was visiting someone, and not browsing like how she actually was. She didn't know what it was about this cemetery, but whatever was bothering Light, it came from here. Misa couldn't ask Ryuk about it anymore, because he'd tell Light if he was questioned like that again, no matter how much she'd ask him not to.

She drifted among the headstones, which were different from the traditional one's found at most gravesites in Japan. These were more western, because it was a lone gravestone with a simple message carved upon it, and some took on various shapes. Japanese one's all looked the same, standing tall and proud upon an alter of the same stone with a small area before it, silently asking for offerings of food and prayer. Misa wasn't sure which one's she preferred, because the gothic angels that stood above the dead was a wonderful thought for her, but the quiet soldiers that embodied the departed themselves was a powerful representation.

A particular headstone caught her eye, and she made her way toward it respectfully. It was a broad cross, but it bore no name. What grabbed her attention were the creeping vines that crawled up the length of it. Misa looked closer at the base, and found that the vines were coming from a certain area, and small pieces of rumpled paper lay under a thin coating of dirt, and half hidden from sight by the leaves. It looked like someone had dropped a packet of seeds and never bothered to pick it up, but had grown on their own when the paper casing became too moist in the weather to hold them away from the nourishing soil.

She ran her hand along the anonymous headstone, suddenly feeling sad for the person it exemplified. A nameless cross…choking under the lovely veneer of delicate vines, for she saw that it seeped into the smallest of cracks, making them deeper and wider. In a few years, the entire thing will be covered if left as it was.

"Misa?"

She jumped, startled at the call, and turned around to find her Light standing imposingly between the rows of the dead. "Light! I thought you had work today?"

He didn't. His coworkers gave him a vacation to relax, but he never told Misa of that, preferring to spend his time elsewhere. "I'm on a lunch break, and went out for a walk. I saw you when I was passing by." he lied smoothly, "What brings you here?"

"Oh, I'm…visiting a cousin."

"Are you sure?" he inquired, a strange glint in his eye.

"Why ask? Of course I'm sure, Light." She said nervously. Ever since that night she wasn't sure of how to act anymore. She knew it was better to just pretend nothing happened, because as far as he knew from her perspective, nothing did. But it wasn't that simple for her. "Are you ok?"

"Me? I'm fine," he laughed a little, like the answer was an obvious one, "I was just wondering what you were doing here. I mean," he waved at her attire, "I wasn't aware that a relative of yours was lain here, and on this day." He looked at her with a charming smile, "If you told me beforehand, we could've come together."

"Yeah, I'm sorry," she said as she stood up, "but I thought you'd be too busy. And besides," she skittered toward him excitedly, feeling more confident, "you're here now, so let's get some ice cream before you head back!"

"Of course." The anniversary of Misa's parents' deaths had already passed three months ago. She set out on her own when Light wasn't home to go with her to place offerings upon their grave, and she'd assumed that he had forgotten. But he didn't.

He knew the date, and the place they were buried, so he immediately knew that she had visited the cemetery L was placed in when she retold her previous day. She lied because she didn't want Light to know why she went there, and the only reason for that is if she was hiding something. Misa complained every so often about him not being home very much, and this past week those complaints have gone silent, as if she had found something else to think about. There was no reason to lie about going there, so he turned on Ryuk.

As he feared, the shinigami yielded to bribes. It wasn't even something that Light himself hasn't given him, it was an _apple_. A single apple.

What was he going to do? Threaten to take away all the apples in the house if he did that again? Slap him on the wrist and say, "Bad Ryuk. You don't tattle on Light." and send him to a corner? What was he to do with a shinigami that could very well destroy his plans?

Misa wasn't ready to know of L's resurrection yet. She couldn't find out until L himself was able to cope with the idea of helping Light with his utopia, otherwise he would have to deal with the threat of her killing him in order to protect themselves. L was a powerful figure, and Light had no doubt that he could regain his status if he were to come in contact with a computer, or even slip out of his confinement for a week. He couldn't risk it. With Misa as his eyes, L with his keen intellect and reputation, and Light overseeing the peace, he would have the perfect rulers for the perfect world. A true paradise.

He won't stand for anything else.

--

What was wrong with him? That man was a strange one. Definitely high levels of narcissism involved, but that doesn't explain the reason behind this sudden change in behavior. Maybe be came to some kind of self righteous decision, about his "new world". That kiss was purely experimental, but he took it so seriously, so it probably meant a lot more to him. So he did have a crush on him. That's a laugh; Light had a crush on L, and a pretty big one, considering. Light himself didn't like that idea, so he came up with some excuse to suppress it, and for all he knew, it worked.

_That bastard._

L was furious. He hated being so weak. He couldn't even defend himself against a child! His little game of Upsetting Yagami no longer mattered as of ten minutes ago, when the pompous snot had left his prison.

His entire face throbbed in pain, his ribs, legs, everything hurt. Just one question about their last encounter, and Light had snapped. He backhanded him with a fist, and L was flung from his crouch on the bed and onto the hard floor. L launched himself at Light's knees, and the two of them wrestled on the ground, fists and curses flying shamelessly in the charged air. Needless to say, Light had the upper hand, and L didn't stand a chance against a young man in his prime who never had to deal with the process of forceful resurrection.

It happened so fast, and it was all he could do to keep from making any pained noise as Light threw him across the room like a ragdoll. After that, the real fun began.

"What's wrong L?" he panted, and flipped his hair back to keep it out of his eyes, "Tired?" He didn't wait for the answer that he wasn't going to give, instead walking over to the small table and picked up a pack of apple flavored gummies. He lifted L up by his armpits from the floor and had him leaning on the wall in a sitting position. L growled, and Light punched him in the gut.

He ripped open the packet and tilted L's head back, and poured all the gummies into his bleeding mouth. They mixed with his blood, which was the result of getting hit in the face continuously, and his teeth ripped at the inside of his cheeks. Light threw the plastic away from himself, and grabbed onto L's jaw to push it at his skull and pull it back, _making_ him chew them. L struggled and clawed at those hands, but when his fingers found Light's face, he gave the man another merciless punch. This time, the partially chewed gummies flew out of L's mouth when he choked and gasped when his diaphragm was assaulted.

Light grasped the sides of L's swollen face, intent on another kiss, but L spit out the rest of the gummies at him. He didn't react immediately, but it looked like the rage was boiling over inside, and once again, Light threw him to the other side of the room. An enraged scuffle, more beatings and occasional yelling, and somehow L managed to get a hold of one of Light's fingers. He bit it as hard as he could, and Light had to wrap his free hand around his throat to throttle him until he finally let go.

Worn and beaten, L was too slow to push the young man away as he bent down to kiss him again. This one wasn't as suffocating as the first, but Light used his teeth and clamped down on his tongue and lips, keeping his jaw open by prying them apart by using his own as a wedge. L had to endure this until Light's wandering hands paused when it came into contact with the area between L's thighs. He rubbed his palm against his groin, and L grabbed a handful of brown hair and twisted it upward in a desperate attempt to make him stop. Light hissed into his mouth, and used his other hand to dive under the thick sweatpants and dug his fingers into his anatomy.

He couldn't scream, and even if he fought back, Light would do something worse to him. This was ridiculous…how can this happen to him?

Light's teeth found his tongue again, and it seemed like all the other times he bit it, it was just a nibble. But L was still ripping at his hair, so Light made it so L had to let go, else his tongue would be no more. Their faces finally broke apart, and Light lay on top of the other.

"Yagami…" he rasped, "shtop."

"Call me Light." He demanded, slowly tugging L's pants down.

"Don'." adrenaline was the only thing that kept him from fainting, and L tried pushing him away, "Don' do dis, Yagami."

Light sat up between his spread legs and stripped L's lower body in one motion, grabbing at his limp organ again, "I want you to call me Light."

"No."

A grim expression settled on his features, and Light squeezed the base of L's penis and kept the same pressure as he moved his fist slowly upward. He continued this as it began hardening and distending, "All you ever do is argue with me. It was funny at first, but now it's just annoying." He bowed down to engulf the growing appendage with his mouth, covering it with saliva and suckling it to make it harder.

L glared at the ceiling, his breathing picking up speed. His bruised hands twitched, and wanted nothing short of killing the young man doing this to him.

Light lifted himself away when the penis began to climb into his throat, and smiled in spite of himself, clasping and pulling at it all the while. "How far do want me to take this, L? I have no issues with taking it to a whole other level."

"If dis is what you ge'off on, Yagami."

He sighed, and jabbed his finger nail into the slit none too gently. L flinched. "I want you to enjoy this, and I also want you to start calling me Light again." He ran both hands along the length now, one finger omitted from the stimulation because of the oral abuse it was subjected to before. He sucked on the head again, and it found that it couldn't get any bigger.

Light scooted over beside L, one hand holding his penis against his stomach. He kissed his cheek, "How do you want to go about this, L?"

He refused to speak, and Light continued to fondle him. He kept telling him to call him by his first name, but didn't push as hard as he could have. L refused to give in, and after an unbearable ten minutes later, spilled over in the young man's mouth when he sucked on him once more.

"L, why are you so difficult?" he asked, some semen on the corner of his lips, and touching his forehead to the other's, "That's the only thing I can ever count on with you. Your stubbornness." The swelling on his eye was beginning to turn into an ugly dark purple, but Light would deal with that later. "Everything else can go one way or another when you're around."

He stood up, and winced at the soreness in his legs, "That's enough for today, we're both pretty beaten up."

Light began to pick L up from the floor, and he quickly shifted his body away from those disgusting hands to settle himself against the wall.

"L, I'm trying to help you."

"Get- out-." He breathed, ignoring the stinging pain in his injured tongue.

"L-" he was interrupted by the glare sent his way, daring him to say he wasn't capable of doing things himself. "…Fine. If that's what you want." So Light left him, his victory tasting more bitter than he wanted.

* * *

A/N: no, that doesn't mean L's semen tastes bitter.

Light's going crrr-aaa-zaaayy. But I'll let you guys in on something: Light did all that because he knew he wouldn't be able to keep away from L by himself, so he destroyed the poor guys pride to make _him_ do the work of distancing the two of them. But if that's the case, maybe Light _should_ have raped him.

So the next chapter won't be as psychotic, maybe even a tiny bit fluffy.

Thank you for reading, and please review!

-Zak


	8. Legacy of Sorrow

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Writhing among stacks of essays in agony seems to be a new pastime of mine, one of which I am not fond of. I have no relation to the creation of Death Note nor any intention of claiming characters sprouted from said production.

A/N: What's this? Could it BE? AN UPDATE????!!!! Holy Mother Teresa I haven't abandoned this fic!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH

Yeah. That's right. I was just biding my time… No I wasn't. I won't explain why it's taken me two months to spit this chapter out, because I kind of already did in the disclaimer. I don't think anyone needs more of an explanation than that. I'm still a student…and I should hope most of you understand the predicament this amateur writer is in.

SO ANYWAY I LOVE AND ADORE MY REVIEWERS BECAUSE YOU ROCK MY PANTS OFF IN THE MOST MODEST WAY YOU WISH TO THINK OF IT AS!!! ThAnK yOu: **Zedin, MacyL- kun, **and **Ayaken **!!!!! This one's for you guys :)

* * *

Legacy of Sorrow

Light came too late to hear the crash of old wood, and stood in front of the door with a small bag of groceries in hand. It was a couple days after the fight, and the young man had reasoned that L should have calmed down a bit since then; in plus he couldn't very well leave the man starving in there now could he? Light unlocked and opened the door, but noticed immediately how loose the door felt on its hinges. He looked around the empty room, and listened for any noises from the bathroom. Nothing.

Throwing the bag to the ground, Light searched the entire floor. The bathroom, under the bed, flung the blankets off the bed, in the cabinets under the sink, but no L. Was the man _gone_? Light cursed and raged, but reined in his fury so that he can think rationally about this. He sank onto the small table.

"What…how did he get out?" he asked himself, and looked up, "The _door_?"

No…the door was very loose, but unless L had removed the entire thing and placed it back exactly where it was, he couldn't have gone out that way. He had replaced the lock when the man shoved metal and plastic spoons in it, so he was the only one with the key. He turned toward the window, and all but one of the planks were still in place, the latter laying piteously on the ground. Other than that, everything was in place…except the tiny bits of plastic that had been wedged in there ever since L put them there. He pushed on the boards, until one of them squeaked in mercy. Light tugged on that one, and it didn't take long for it to give in and pop out of place.

Light continued to find more loose boards and removed them from the small window. This was where L got out. He stuck his head out of the opening and was met with the ever bright sun gleaming powerfully from over the buildings, now heading to its zenith in the sky. This old building didn't stand vertically straight like most of the newer ones, the lower portion was thicker and got smaller as the three floors went up, so when Light peered downward, he found a small crash site in the roof part to the ground floor of the building.

"L." he sighed under his breath, and ran towards the stairs.

The scenario that Light pieced together was; L might've tried to bust the door by slamming into it with something, his body or the already decrepit looking chair that neither of them went near, and when that didn't work he turned on the only other opening in the room. But when he finally managed to get the boards out of his way, the sun impaired his sight so badly that he _fell_ out of the window instead of safely climbing out. That definitely would have hurt.

--

He could feel it now, the chill breeze of January ghosting along his face. It was right there, his freedom, all the people he had to contact, everything was going to be ready for him! L stumbled through the clutter of rickety tables and dusty chairs, blinded by the rays of sunshine leaking into the room. The front door was in sight, and all he had to do was to open it and he wouldn't turn back. His legs were shaking and his fingers twitched, in excitement, cold or weakness, he couldn't tell. He never thought that he'd ever feel so desperate to see other people in his life, no matter what the circumstance. As long as Watari was there to console him, or simply ask if he was ok, that was enough for L. That's all he really needed. But he knew Watari was gone. He wasn't so ignorant to believe that Light would spare him, and L was positive that he had perished before he himself did. As loyally as always, the old man had deleted all the vital case information before he breathed his last, so that can only mean that he was experiencing the beginnings of a heart attack during. Not only did Light take away the only person he considered family, but even his dignity in every respect.

L couldn't pretend to be civil toward the boy anymore, not after that. But the question of _why_ he did all of that came to mind, and the conclusions he came up with only caused him to be even more livid. How dare he? What kind of idiocy did he have to think that L would react to that calmly? Who did he think he was _dealing_ with here? Using him for his own selfish cause, and expect _him_ to take it lying down? Not a chance.

His hands made contact with the wooden door, and his heart leapt with triumph. When he squinted ahead, he was vaguely surprised when he realized that it wasn't really a door, but a bunch of planks nailed across a frame. L peered through the cracks, and saw regular people passing by minding their own business. There was a man in a pressed suit checking his wrist watch as he ran toward the subway station, a few school girls in their uniforms giggling over their new cell phones, and other normal civilians going on with their daily lives. Like nothing was wrong, and to them, nothing was.

L could only open his eyes a fraction, the sun blaring down on him from above the protective shadows. He rubbed his eyes, blinked rapidly, stared hard at his bruised hands, but he still couldn't look straight ahead without getting blinded. He strained to see a homeless man crouching against the building right across from him, and began to shake in anger.

All the exercise he had to sweat through, all the mental pain he had to sit and take, the _planning _and waiting for the opportune moment to act, was everything for nothing because he couldn't withstand the _sun_? No. He was going to get out. L stripped off his warm sweater and pulled off one of the few undershirts he wore. Folding it in half, he laid it across the top of his head and struggled into his sweater again, tucked the extra cloth into the neckline, and puffed out the shirt on his head. It looked like a thin hood from under a sweater, and luckily the shirt he had used was huge, so it made an effective veil. L crawled through one of the larger cracks the planks provided and that was it; he was outside.

It was still early in the morning, so thankfully the streets weren't as crowded as it usually was in the city of Tokyo, but the bright sun was making it hard for him to see. He still garnered attention from the people around him, and L strained to walk as normally as his injuries would let him. The bruises on his ribs made his posture look rigid and his legs would buckle every so often, but he carried on the best he could as he tugged the shirt in front of his face.

"Pardon me," he said slowly to a man who was beginning to open up shop, "do you…know where I can find a - public library?"

The man took a good look at him, his hand on the knob with the key still in the lock, "Well, there's the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library, and then the Tama Library…. What did you have in mind?"

"I'm, actually looking for a…computer I can use, is either of them - nearby?"

"Well if it's a computer you're looking for the Central Library would be best, but it's a ways from here." he said kindly, "You could take the bus."

"Thank you." L began to turn away, until the man called to him.

"Hey, hold on a second." He walked over to his side with a slight waddle, "Aren't you going to ask where it is?" he glanced at the bruises and cuts on the lower portion of L's face again, and sighed. He took something out of his pocket, and stuffed it in the younger man's sweater pouch.

L heard the crinkle of paper Yen and a couple coins, he snuck a quick look at the shopkeeper quizzically, "Sir?"

"There's a bus station around that corner and all the way down the street, you can't miss it."

Giving a complete stranger so much money was lost on L. He continued to stare at the man, until he remembered that his left eye was still purple from the other day. "Thank you." He repeated, and walked off stiffly.

The shopkeeper watched him pityingly, and said to himself, "I really have to lay off those *dramas…."

L made it to the bus station longer than it should have taken him, and he stayed behind the group of people that had congregated around the bus sign. A few older women gave him fleeting glances and whispered amongst themselves, and if the circumstances were different, he wouldn't have minded as much. He looked down at his clothes, and picked off some splinters he found stuck to him and patted off some patches of dust. He looked extremely disheveled.

The bus came around, and a few younger teens pushed to get in first, as if it was essential to their happiness. L finally settled himself on one of the front seats, glad to be able to sit down, and everything rushed at him violently. The last encounter with Yagami, the constant battle with that goddamn door, and then the boards on the window. He was desperate, _so_ desperate, to get out that he didn't stop to consider the condition of his body. He would hurt, feel stings and soreness in areas, but that didn't stop him in his fight for freedom. When he fell out of the window, he landed on a strong table with a thin white blanket laid over it, barely softening his fall. He was lucky to not have died.

But that led to another thing that puzzled him. While he was falling, he could have _sworn_ that there was something that had grabbed hold of him. He couldn't see what it was, but he felt something clutch at his sweater in mid-fall, breaking the momentum that would have surely killed him when he hit the ground. But whatever it was, it let go and L fell the rest of the way.

He blinked slowly up ahead, the warm bus lulling him to much needed rest. The Central Library should be coming up in about ten minutes, so he let his eyes slide close for a moment, and fell asleep.

--

"If I had the- means to," L said calmly, his speech halted by his swollen tongue, "there's no doubt in my mind that… I would kill you right now - Yagami-kun."

"Yes, and that's why you're tied down."

"And the- reason I'm blindfolded?"

"Because the sun was too much for your eyes, and if I told you to keep them shut you'd only do the opposite."

"True. I don't like Yagami-kun at all." L was about to let out a pun, saying that he didn't like light, but then he'd be saying the boys name, which is exactly what he wanted.

But Light seemed to understand anyway, and he looked up to the man's face. He had seen L just rounding the corner on the street, and found him boarding the bus. If he had missed him by only a second, Light would have had a much harder time of reaching him. It was circumstances like these that had him understand that there _must_ be something up there that favored him, because there were just so many instances that were too perfect for his cause. Except the issue at hand at the moment; Light almost wished that he hated L as much as L hated him.

The entire thing he did the other day, the beating and the molestation, only made him feel worse. He felt…guilty. He thought that he would be able to now let go of all the fond emotions of the man and turn it into some twisted version of victory, and even…silently mock him. But he couldn't bring himself to. It was far too cruel. And the part where he wanted L to hate him more worked marvelously. He wanted to tell him that he was sorry, but Light suspected that would only make things worse. Blindfolding him for the sake of saving him more pain was only half the reason, the other was so that he didn't have to see the loathing glare that was trained on him even through the cloth.

"I will break your fingers- if you touch me- there." L warned, "When I'm let loose...don't doubt that I will find a way."

Light's hand slowly retreated from the wounds on the man's thighs, and said something that he didn't mean to, "When do you think I'm going to let you loose? After that stunt you pulled today I don't really want to untie you from here." he stopped himself from saying anymore.

L tightened his lips into a straight line, his hatred almost radiating off of him. "Well." He said softly, "Very becoming of you. This is very much, like how you intend on controlling the world, is it not? Tying everyone down with threats of death- and making sure that they obey you without exception. I must frustrate you to no end." The young man closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, but before he could respond, L cut in again, "Why are you keeping me alive? Is it- because you want someone to play with? Or better yet, do you expect- me to _help_ you on your search for a world without crime?" he trained his veiled face upward, toward the blank ceiling, "I would rather die."

Silence hung about them, the weight on his shoulders becoming even heavier. He really was just playing nurse with L, wasn't he? But that was only because he wanted to have the pair of them become gods…but if he hung onto that excuse, then he could have done so as soon as L regained his memories. L's recovery was only taking so long because Light was waiting for his body to fully heal, and waiting for the right moment to bring it up. But L didn't need all of his muscles to think. His mind had recovered far faster than anything else, and that was enough, but Light still waited. He was afraid of L trying to get in touch with all of his old contacts, and then expose him as Kira…but was that it?

Light finally broke the quiet, "You'd rather die?" he wrapped his hands around the man's delicate neck, "Would you really?" If someone were to see this display, the undeniable crazed glint in his eye would be visible in a red haze, "That can be arranged, but don't you think that if I went by what _you_'d rather do, then everything I've been trying to do to you now would be a waste?"

"And what are you- trying to do with me?" he replied in a bored tone.

_Have you love me._ "What do you want to hear me say, L?" he asked gently, his grasping fingers stroking the pale throat.

"Something you may have never done before." He said, and Light could feel the vibrations under his hands, "The truth."

His twisted smile twitched, "Aw, well you're no fun L."

"Is it fun? To play me as a fool- and to keep me locked up in here after bringing me back from, the dead?" he turned his head in Light's direction, "How _did_ you bring me back, Yagami-kun?"

L could feel a smirk stretch across the boy's jaw as he lay on the bed as he replied, "Just a little hocus pocus, no big deal."

"You're having the time of your life- aren't you, you arrogant bastard."

Light removed his hands, and stood straighter, bearing down on the rigid figure on the bed. "Keep talking like that and the demons are going to cut your tongue out. But then again," he said haughtily, "that wouldn't be so bad for _me_."

Something in him snapped. L never hated anyone as much as he hated Light at this moment, and he hoped that he won't have to ever again. He tore at his bindings, and wriggled around madly like he was having some sort of seizure, fully intent on wrapping _his_ hands around the other's throat, and strangling him until his head rolled off. During his frenzied struggles, his blindfold slipped down his face and he glimpsed the boy's expression, and he looked shocked, and afraid. _As he should be_. L thought savagely, and his ankle managed to get free of one of the bindings and he kicked at Light's abdomen as hard as he could. The boy caught it just in time and flung his body on the bed, acting as an anchor for the convulsing man below him. L was opening up all the carefully bandaged wounds on his battered form, and Light didn't know what to do for him to calm down.

"L-" he said through his teeth, "L lay still! You're hurting yourself!"

"Get off Yagami!" L yelled savagely, throwing himself around as much as possible, "I will not stand for being your toy!" the blindfold fell limply along his neck, and the man's glare could have turned an army into stone if that were feasible, and it flooded Light with an unnamable emotion that had him want to clutch at him in mercy.

"L!"

"Hey Light! There you are." The gangly shinigami drifted into the room casually with the struggling men on the other side, and he looked on with unabashed interest, "Wha cha doin'?"

"L! I'm trying to help you dammit!"

"I don't need your 'help' I never wanted it!"

Light stuffed a corner of the blanket into the man's mouth, then preceded to sit on his legs and put most of his weight into holding down his shoulders as hard as he could. L writhed and screamed angrily into his gag, his usual colorless face turning red with his thrashing. It tore at the young man to know that he had caused all of this on purpose, and it was shocking at the same time that L, the stoic detective that always got what he wanted, was the same man that was throwing a fit beneath him in a rage.

Ryuk also started thinking back to how those two were before he threw in an eraser, but instead of feeling bad about it he was quite amused. He was really happy about that decision even through all the crap he had to deal with because of his human, and his boss. He couldn't help himself, it's all so _fun_! "Hey Liiight!"

The young man ignored the calls, but his eyes narrowed in annoyance. L saw this and recognized it as a subtle warning of an oncoming fight, so braced himself for another beating by scrunching up his face and tensing his body. Light grasped the sides of the man's face tightly with both hands, but before he bent down to kiss him again, he briefly saw Ryuk watching them with wide eyes. For a reason unknown to him, Light felt that there shouldn't be a spectator for something like this, and began to get greatly irritated by the shinigamis presence.

Seeing that L had his eyes closed firmly, he risked a quick glare at Ryuk and flicked his gaze toward the window and back at him purposefully, willing him to leave. The shinigami either didn't understand or didn't care, because he merely gave Light a thumbs up and continued watching. Light's brows furrowed in aggravation, and when he turned back to the business at hand, he was met with L's large pupils completely dilated in his direction.

"Is something there?" he asked, almost tauntingly.

What was that supposed to mean? Light stared into his eyes, confused. L has no way of knowing that the shinigami was in the room. "What are you talking about?"

"Hey Light!" Ryuk began obnoxiously, "You know, there's something I should tell you."

Light threw his head back in exasperation and whipped it around toward him, "Not now, Ryuk!" Not a second after his outburst left his lips, the boy cursed to himself. Well shit. He turned back to L, who had stopped struggling and had a strange expression on his face.

"Yes Ryuk, now doesn't seem to be the right time." he said quietly.

* * *

*a "drama" in Asia is the same as a "soap opera" in America. And note that this implies that the guy probably was remembering one that involved a young man that was beaten up by some mobsters, likely for the sake of his one true love or something of the sort…. Those kinds of dramas are irritatingly overdone.

A/N: Well I'm not very happy how this came out, but it'll have to do for now. What'd you think? Hmmmm? Am I being too redundant, not explaining things very clearly? I now I are not of the usual typing pool and I understand if this is hard to follow, so if anything confuses you, let me know and I'll try to clear things up for you, yes?

I enjoy hearing your thoughts on what's happening here, so just let me know you bothered to read this and I'll be a happy person.

Thanks for reading, and please review!

-Zak


	9. The Black Cat

Disclaimer: shalalalalalalalallamalalala~ I don't own Death Note. I'm merely borrowing some characters.

A/N: after a long wait…it's finally here. thank you to all my faithful readers, I know I'm pushing my luck with making you guys wait so long ;;

**THANK YOU: Ayaken, Zedin, jjwitdaheydiddydiddy, MacyL-kun, Anonnymus, spock-of-the-fridge **and **Friendly stalker!!! **^________________________________________^

* * *

The Black Cat

There was a moment of pause in the air, a feeling of disbelief and horror. At first he didn't think he heard right, like he was going crazy all of a sudden. What else could it be? Light's hold on the man below him stayed firm, albeit shaky, and he forced his stare away from L and to the shinigami on the other side of the room. Ryuk, with his usual slouched posture and grotesquely long arms dangling from his shoulders, didn't look as taunting as Light expected him to be for this occasion. He actually looked just as intrigued as he would if he found a talking apple begging for mercy.

"Oooh?" he breathed in that grainy voice, "What's this? He can see me?"

The young man's brow wrinkled in confusion, something wasn't right about this. Light whipped his head around to L, and staring into his face hard, realized L was just pretending he knew what Light was doing, when he was trying to get the shinigami to go away. He was playing along with the information he let out. "L, you-"

"That's your shinigami's name, am I right?" he said quietly, like the calm after the storm of screams, "I have met Rem, but that was not the shinigami that was attached to the Death Note you had in the beginning."

Ah. So L was doing his share of cogitating in his isolation. "Is that what you think?"

"Yes." He said firmly, "That is what I believe."

He can't know that Rem has died…can he? That's impossible, Light thought to himself, there's no way he can know that shinigamis can die without consulting Rem, Misa or myself. And I know for sure that Rem would never tell him anything like that, it would be pointless, and Misa would never dream of it. He also knows that you can't see a shinigami unless you physically touch the notebook it's attached to, but does he know that if you haven't touched the Death Note in 490 days that the shinigami can no longer be visible to you? So many questions… "Rem," Light said tersely, "Take Ryuk and leave."

"Huh?" Ryuk said stupidly, "Light, Rem isn't here-"

"Are you bluffing, Yagami-kun?" L chuckled, his thin chest heaving, "I know that there is only one."

"Is that right?"

L's chuckles were more like hard breathes being forced out of his lungs, "Maybe if you are a little nicer to me, then I will tell Yagami-kun more."

"Like letting you go? You know I can't do that."

"Well," he said calmly, "getting off of me is a kind start, and supplying me with a few books would be a nice treat."

Light wasn't sure of how to take this drastic change in mood. Only a few minutes ago L was thrashing his body around in a fit and now he was gently asking for a book to read. Was he supposed to be compliant and go along with it or stay cautious and refuse to get him what he wanted? "I don't know, L." he said, and saw the man's jaw tighten, "With the way _you've_ been treating me, I'm not sure if I want to do even that."

L didn't say anything, as if he was trying with his entire his being to stay docile. He was dead tired, maddeningly frustrated, and so angry that it felt like he could burst. But he couldn't do anything yet. Not yet.

The young man saw the fire blazing in L's dark eyes, which thankfully weren't directed at him anymore, and felt an enormous amount of heat radiating off of him. For a crazy moment Light thought that the man was going to catch fire, but he quickly realized it was because his body heat was being carried by the blood seeping through the layers of cloth and onto him. He gasped when he looked down on himself, as there was small dark area crawling up his right inner thigh from sitting on top of one of the wounds on L's body, and jumped off immediately. "Shit-"

When L had fallen out the window, the table he landed on splintered horribly and although the table cloth protected him for the most part, he had sloppily crawled out of the mess due to his impaired sight. There was a long scratch all along his left side and tiny slivers of wood in his hands and ankles Light had to extract. He should have thought better of holding him hold down with his own body, because there were more bruises than anything riddled along the thin body and he was only causing him more physical pain.

Light scrambled around the room again to fetch the necessary equipment to treat him. Meanwhile, L lazily lifted his head to look at himself, assessed that his left side was nearly covered in his own blood, and lay back down.

Ryuk turned his head when he heard the door knob rattle softly, and continued staring until Light irritably told him to stop fooling around and fetch him the gauze. He blinked and looked over to the humans. The shinigami kicked the stray roll of gauze over to the young man, and thought how strange of a situation Light Yagami had put himself in, when he had first used the Death Note, to when he erased that last name.

--

"Isn't this the third time he's tried to escape?"

"The fourth, actually."

Ryuk held up his hand and counted off his fingers in sync with his memories, "Really? When-"

"There was a small hole in the wall before, and he ripped out the wooden planks around it to crawl out of." He shook his head in a gesture as he held up his cell phone to his ear. "It wasn't one of his best plans, because it opens to the outside thirty feet in the air with nothing to hold on to. So he gave up after he got a peek at what was behind the wall and waited for me to cover it up again."

"Heh, my favorite was the time he jumped you from behind and knocked you out for a couple minutes. That was hilarious."

"Humph." Light huffed with a small smile, "Especially the part when he tripped over himself and fell all the way down the stairs. I woke up to him trying to untangle the mess he got wrapped in. Where did that cord and stuff come from anyway, Ryuk?"

"From you." He said bluntly, "It was all the things you used to drag the bed and everything in there. I never saw so much water come out of one human before."

He glared at him for a moment, "You could have helped."

"Nah."

They approached the apartment complex where Light lived, and Ryuk, who was actually paying attention to the human's emotions right then, saw an immediate change in face. If there was a word to describe it bluntly, the way the shadows darkened on his features and the shine in his eye dim, the word would have to be sullen. He didn't realize how two-sided the man really was until that moment.

"Why so serious, Light?"

He blatantly ignored him, refusing to be caught seemingly talking to the air. He continued to his floor in silence, and Ryuk couldn't help but snicker to himself. The young man almost threw his key into the lock.

"Light, what's wrong?" Misa asked quietly.

The young man pushed past her as he slipped his shoes off at the front door, not bothering to say anything in return. Enough has happened that night that he didn't want to bother with the lies he had yet to tell her in consolation for his tardy arrival, so he didn't bother. In a way he felt that he already did his part in keeping her happy, by getting rid of any traces of L's blood on his clothes that got transferred as he was bandaging him up.

He retreated to the bedroom, and Misa watched his back disappear behind the door. She stood in the middle of the living room with her hands clasped firmly before her. Her lips quivered at his blatant neglect, and she slowly sat down on the couch, thinking hard. There was something she desperately wanted to talk to him about, but she knew better than to talk to him when he was in a foul mood, as he had been for the past two weeks. He hardly even looked at her anymore. Hot tears began to well up in her eyes as she forced them back. If he was too busy to listen to her, then she had no choice but to act on her own.

She had noticed that he was acting amiss, and she knew that it was probably from stress, but she didn't know how directly it related to the Death Note. _Literally._ Misa had absent mindedly been flipping through the pages a few days ago as she reminisced about Rem, and wanted to see the kinds of names she had written down before she crumbled.

She couldn't help but notice that the last name had been erased.

--

"Who are you?" L said to the cat beside him. "What are you?"

The cat continued to preen herself, paying no heed to the man's questions. L heard the rattling clearly this time, as he heard it before. The doorknob had been shaking ever since the young Yagami had left, softly, barely noticeable until the room was completely silent. It echoed around the small cage, and L could only observe from the bed, as he was still tied down. He was on his own.

There were a lot of things he couldn't explain, and a lot of things that happened in this room that slightly frightened him at first. The creaking floorboards weren't always because of the wind. The cat suddenly looked up from her prudent grooming, and meowed loudly.

L felt the cold air brush along his face, along his hair, and almost snuggle up to him. He didn't know what to make of it, and just kept still. This was the first time that all these strange things happened in one night. It was usually one weird event at a time, so the creaking and the rattling and the cold, cold air all seemed to be some kind of warning, a premonition for an unseen disaster. The man slowly sat up in his bed, heeding the pain in his side, and stared openly at the doorknob. He wanted to get out more than anything, even if he couldn't get in contact with all of his old resources of power, just being outside and free was enough.

After mulling over the off chance that Light had left the door unlocked, he hobbled over the door in his oversized sweater and pajama pants. He stared at the little knob to freedom tremble and shake in its fixed place on the door. L cautiously lifted his arm, and wrapped his hand around it and twisted.

--

The first thing Light saw in the morning was Misa's sorrowful eyes. He held in his surprise and grunted a "good morning" as he rolled over and heaved himself off the bed. Misa watched as he retreated to the master bathroom.

She didn't have a wink of sleep that night. The memories of three years ago rushed up to her in torrents, painfully reminding her why Light never seemed to give her all of his attention. Contrary to popular belief, she wasn't stupid, only naïve.

Naïve because she kept hoping that he might love her the way she'd always dreamed he would, but her hopes of that ever happening dwindled away over the long months. And toward the end of last year, all her imaginary indulgences drained out. Light simply had no interest in romancing her in any way, even just to go along with her advances a little. Like all of a sudden celibacy was preferable to what she had to offer. That thought rattled in her self confidence like a rusted blade, and her bottom lip trembled for no one to see.

It was all _his_ fault. _He _was the one that held Light back. Even if Light himself didn't realize it when the man was alive, she saw how he had acted around him. She of all people knows how it is when one is in love.

Her heart ached in her chest, partly for herself, in her misfortune of falling head over heels for a man that couldn't return her feelings. Another part was for Light, who couldn't see what was right in front of him while he was the happiest she had ever seen him, and got rid of the person he cared about most. The other part was for Ryuzaki. As much as she held a grudge against him, the guilt over the part she played in his downfall swelled in her throat. She could have intervened, gone one step out of place, and L would have been spared, and Light's heart saved. But she didn't, because she _wanted _him out of the picture, so that she could have her man to herself. Oh, and so they didn't have to be convicted as the first and second Kiras.

The sound of the showerhead sighing in the bathroom put her mind in a buzz. When did she first notice Light acting differently when L was still alive? Was it when they fought while she and Light were on their "date"? No… it was before that. It's more like, when did _she_ realize it? It began before Misa met L, and she noticed it a few days after the handcuffs went on. One of the most clever men she has ever met, the one who has kept the both of them alive and hidden from the world for this long, didn't know how badly he had fallen for the person he was handcuffed to. Maybe he was able to stay ignorant about it for so long _because _they were always within reach. So he didn't have the opportunity to miss him, and mull over him on lonely nights.

Then how much pain did his heart have to endure when he fully realized what he had done?

Misa knew now, that it was Ryuzaki he was thinking about when he couldn't look at her. It was Ryuzaki he was remembering when he would ignore her pleading arms. It all made sense, missing pieces were recovered, and she was left not knowing who to cry for.

How unfortunate! How tragic! What kind of mess was she involved in? Misa hid her face in the blankets, wanting to disappear before Light came out of the bathroom. Did he really miss Ryuzaki so much that he erased the man's name in the Death Note? In the strange hope that he might come back from his unmarked grave? Was she doomed to a one-sided commitment? She hated to admit it, but she pitied him so much that it physically hurt.

Light wordlessly exited the steaming room and glanced at the little mound of blankets. He vaguely thought that it looked how L was while he was still in the early stages of being resurrected. He headed out to the living room. "I'll get breakfast ready if you're not feeling well." He called over his shoulder.

He didn't even make it to the kitchen when he spotted the Death Note on the coffee table, innocently open to for the ceiling to behold. He walked over to it, and noticed that it was opened to the last page Rem had written on. He snapped it shut, and cautiously looked over to the bedroom door. Misa was still hidden in the blanket, so he breathed a sigh of relief. Why would Ryuk leave it out like that again? They needed to have another talk when he got him alone.

--

Misa took a day off from modeling and rescheduled her sessions for another time. She wasn't feeling up to pretending to be happy, so she felt it better this way.

Rummaging through her vast closet, she pulled on a black pinstripe dress with ruffled black lace lining the bottom seams that ended right above her knees. A gray corset went over her midsection and she embroidered herself with more accents of crosses and symbols. She painted her face lavishly to emphasize her sad eyes and emotionless expression, and slipped on her three inch heel clogs. The more exaggerated she dressed, the less people noticed her miserable aura, and distracted by her gothic Lolita countenance.

She took her time walking the streets of Tokyo, and for once, ignored the excited chatters from some groups of passerby who recognized her. She would make it up to them later. Her destination was the cemetery, yet again. And this time, there were going to be no distractions. The gates came into view, and the little black cat was sitting beside the gates as it was the last time she tried to visit. Its fur stood on end, but she brushed past it. She had enough layers of clothing to withstand a few little scratches.

The tall headstones stood silent, and it didn't take long for her to see that there were a couple other visitors at the cemetery. One was way on the other side, and looked like an elderly woman. The other visitor, although she didn't want to judge, looked like a hobo. She never came to Ryuzaki's grave before, but when she asked Light how the funeral was when he had returned three years ago, he said that the cross was a fitting stone for him. She had no idea what he meant, but she knew that it was a blank cross.

Misa searched the entire cemetery for a headstone of that description, but she couldn't find it anywhere. Frustrated, she decided to ask around. "Excuse me," she said softly, and the elder woman turned to face her, "I'm a little lost."

"What do you need, young miss?" she said kindly.

"I was wondering if you might know where a cross shaped headstone could be? It wouldn't have name on it."

She nodded slowly, "Yes, I remember I saw it a few times. Always wondered who would have such a lonely grave." Her weathered eyes peered over the rows of carved marble and stone. "I believe it's somewhere up there, but the last time I saw it there was some weeds creeping up the stone bit by bit." She pointed in the general direction of the hobo, "Over there, but I imagine that the cross would be covered in those vines."

"Oh, maybe that's why I couldn't find it." Misa said wistfully, "Thank you so much, granny."

The elder woman merely smiled and turned back to her husband's grave, brushing away the tiniest speck of dust off the headstone. Misa couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her.

As she headed toward the direction she was guided to, she immediately spotted what she was looking for. There was no nameless cross any longer. A tangle of vines replaced it entirely, and a ragged man stood in front of it. Misa didn't know what to make of this hobo-looking person, but she was uneasy as she made her way toward him.

He was wearing a large stained white sweater that did little to hide how skinny he was, and his hood was pulled low over his face. What covered his legs were simply loose cotton pants that looked comfortable enough to sleep in, and most strange of all, he was barefoot.

She stood quietly next to him as she gazed at the mess of vines. Now that she saw it up close, she could see the stone beneath the wiry plants. She saw the hooded man slightly turn his head in her direction, but then seemed to think better of it, and went back to staring at the vines.

Misa expected her visit to involve more contemplating on her part, but now there was this man doing the same, and she couldn't help but burn in curiosity. Did he even know who was buried here?

"Strange."

The young woman almost jumped at the whispered word. She didn't expect him to say anything, but looked over at him. "What do you mean?"

"A pack of seeds were dropped here last year. And after a long struggle, the grave keeper finally decided to leave it alone."

"How is that strange?"

"Hm?" he lifted his head. "Oh, I wasn't referring to that. I apologize for misleading you." He fell silent, forgetting to answer her question.

There was something weird with this man, and Misa suddenly didn't like how close she was standing to him. It would be rude to abruptly back up a few steps, so she stayed where she was and observed him at the corner of her eye. He was very skinny, and his voice was deep and raspy. Not so much of smokers rasp, but the kind when one begins speaking after staying mute for a long time. His shoulders were rounded, and he slouched like an old man who worked too much in his prime.

_Ryuzaki used to stand like that, _she thought listlessly. He would always hunch over like an old rice field worker, and would hold things like it was going to attack him at any moment. She always found it a little cute, because that was uniquely L. He was a nosey pervert who couldn't function without cameras watching everyone, so if someone were to sneakily pick his nose, Ryuzaki would know.

Maybe if Misa didn't remember that the man wasn't wearing any shoes, then this visit to the cemetery wouldn't have been as ominous. But she did. And it struck her as odd, how the man reminded her so much of Ryuzaki. Her eyes traveled up and down his body, from his colorless bare feet to his white hood. Her mouth felt dry.

If he was wearing a three-quarter sleeve white cotton shirt and a pair of oversized faded blue jeans instead of- No! It can't be…. Misa didn't know what to do. Was she panicking over nothing, and all of it was coincidence? That this man just reminded her of Ryuzaki because she was thinking about him earlier? She had to find out.

"Excuse me," she managed to force out.

The man slowly turned his head again, his face still hidden in shadow. She peered into the hood the best she could from where she stood, but she still couldn't see him.

"I'm sorry, but you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago." The tiniest tremble shook her sentence, but she went on. "May I ask what you're name is?"

He stayed silent. Misa waited for him to answer and almost leaned forward in her eagerness to be proven wrong in her suspicions. She was disappointed, however, when the man suddenly hitched in a swift breath and began edging away from her. She saw from his jerking movements that he was blind, with his arms held out to the side and hands reaching, or feeling for anything he might bump into.

She let out the breath she held in. He couldn't be Ryuzaki…stupid of her to even think it. And now she's off and frightened this poor blind man. Misa reached out to gently take his arm, "Sir, I'm sorry if I scared you, here let me help y-"

"Don't touch me!" he wheezed and suddenly his right arm swung to his midsection, as if it pained him to move too quickly. "Stay away!"

Misa was shocked at his behavior, and obediently backed off, a hurt expression on her face. "Ok…" Then as she saw one of his legs buckle beneath him, she went back to his aide as the man fell over, landing hard on the ground.

His hood slide back a couple inches, and he gasped in pain as sunlight hit his sensitive eyes. He covered them with his hand, while the other pulled the hood lower onto his face. That was enough for Misa to see his entire face, and the blood froze in her veins.

* * *

A/N: ouuuuuuuuu such drama! this is bound for disaster, i think.

also, i recieved a request from spock-of-the-fridge to let something good happen, and i think maybe i could back off from being a sadistic dramaqueen and give everyone a breather...but then it'd throw off the storyline :P but i'll sneak something in there, i promise ^_^

as always, reviews are well recieved and loved, so keep 'em coming!

-Zak


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